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Turns out Thomas Tuchel was right.

The soccer season was only a few weeks old when the England coach expressed his belief that old-school tactics were back in vogue.

Long throw-ins. Long clearances by goalkeepers. Crosses into the box for tall strikers.

“All these patterns are back,” Tuchel said, generating some mild surprise among an English soccer audience that has been enchanted over the past decade by a Pep Guardiola-influenced style of play where possession of the ball was king.

Well, Tuchel’s assessment has proved to be accurate, with teams from the lucrative, glitzy Premier League — heck, even Guardiola’s slick Manchester City side — showing a

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