World Cup 2026: How Thomas Tuchel started his path to England manager from wild hip-hop parties

Tuchel moved to Stuttgart to study business administration and found work in a bar.

This was not just any bar, however. Tuchel’s new workplace was located in the famous Radio Barth building on Stuttgart’s Rotebuhlplatz.

Originally a huge music department store which sold records and instruments, the building had been slated for demolition after the store filed for insolvency in 1995.

For a few years before it was torn down, however, the venue was rented out to young artists, who briefly transformed it into an iconic nightlife and culture venue.

Located on the ground floor of the building, the Radio Bar where Tuchel worked became a hotspot for Germany’s burgeoning hip-hop scene.

In an interview, external with a student-made documentary in 2008, the bar’s former manager Carlos Coelho recalled how popular it became.

“We had so many people coming that we had to shut the doors because nobody else could fit in the space,” he said.

“People just loved it, especially being in this historic Radio Barth building. Everyone who came would say, ‘this is where I bought my first record’.”

Tuchel began collecting empty bottles and glasses, before graduating to table-waiting and eventually serving cocktails at the bar.

“I wouldn’t want to have drunk the cocktails I was making at the beginning,” he told Die Zeit.

Yet aside from how to make a mojito and carry a tray of glasses above his head, the England manager said his time at the bar taught him valuable lessons for his future career.

“Shift by shift, night by night, I slowly built up my confidence working in the bar,” he told Die Zeit.

“I overcame my inhibitions about asking strangers if they needed my help, and I realised that people liked me for who I was, that they had no idea that I was an ex-footballer.”

One of the people Tuchel befriended at the bar was Max Herre, a Stuttgart musician who would go on to be one of Germany’s most popular rappers.

Speaking to the podcast, external Und was machst du am Wochenende (And what do you do on the weekend) in 2024, Herre recalled how Tuchel became part of his “clique” and would often turn up to his concerts.

“On one occasion, he even came all the way to a gig in Vienna,” said Herre.