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Anthony Barry had to submit a dissertation to achieve his FA Pro Licence, so the young coach studied 16,380 throw-ins and presented his findings to his classmates, who included Frank Lampard and Michael Carrick.
It was 2020, and it would prove to be a formative moment in his career. Lampard brought Barry – then assistant manager at League One’s Wigan Athletic – to work with him at Chelsea, and the Liverpudlian coach stayed on under Lampard’s successors, Thomas Tuchel and then Graham Potter.
Tuchel was so impressed that when he joined Bayern Munich he “bought” Barry from Chelsea for £1m, and put the Englishman in charge of all his set-pieces. In the meantime, Barry worked as a coach under Roberto Martinez at Belgium and then Portugal’s national team, flying between club and national roles with a laptop for each job.
And so, as Tuchel was announced as England’s new manager on Wednesday, it was no surprise to see Barry named as his assistant. Tuchel has alongside him a friend and trusted colleague who knows English football and the FA, who has coached captain Harry Kane before, who has worked with world-class players, international teams and already been to a World Cup.
For Barry, it is not only the chance to coach his national team and perhaps deliver long awaited silverware, but to work with his mentor.
“I have no embarrassment to say that I fell in love with him as a person,” Barry told The Times last year, of his relationship with Tuchel. “He quickly became a friend and role model. From a working point of view we have similar ideas. He has spent so much time to help me develop as a young coach.
“Football-wise he’s a genius. Working alongside Roberto and Thomas, I get the Spanish idea of the game and German idea and the way these guys see football, break it down, analyse and build it back up is an education. They speak about position play, about spaces, and a lot about behaviour rather than structure. That’s different to the English idea.”
Barry’s playing career could be filed in the journeyman category, with stints at eight clubs predominantly in League Two and the National League. He played in the same Everton youth teams as Wayne Rooney and later in the same Fleetwood Town side as Jamie Vardy.
But Barry found his calling in coaching, and spent three years at Wigan before his big break at Chelsea. He was 33 when he began his Pro Licence, and he went to extreme lengths to feel prepared for presenting to high-profile ex-players, giving talks in schools and prisons and joining a speakers’ club to improve his delivery. He graduated with top marks in the class.
The 38-year-old’s ultimate ambition remains to become a manager in his own right, but he is building deep foundations of knowledge across Europe. “My job is to immerse myself in that and develop, to try to become one of the most well-rounded coaches in the world,” he said. “Where I end up, football will decide.”
Now football has decided his next step, and there are few bigger coaching roles around than England’s No 2.
“We are thrilled to have hired Thomas Tuchel, one of the best coaches in the world and Anthony Barry who is one of the best English coaches to support him,” said the FA’s chief executive, Mark Bullingham. “Our recruitment process has been very thorough. Before the Euros we had a contingency plan and outlined exactly the qualities we would be looking for in a coach.
“Thomas was very impressive and stood out with his vast expertise and his drive. Anthony is a top English talent and also has international experience with Republic of Ireland, Belgium and Portugal.”
Four years after giving that extensive presentation on throw-ins, Barry is back at St George’s Park.
