The good news is that England, under new head coach Thomas Tuchel, are off to a winning start. The Three Lions secured a comfortable 2-0 victory in the World Cup qualifier against Albania at Wembley. It’s three points on the board and ultimately that’s all that matters. The bad news is that it wasn’t exactly the best of games, lacking quality and excitement. The stark truth remains that England lack the clinical edge that the top teams possess. After the game, Tuchel admitted as much, saying his players needed to do better overall. His honesty is commendable.
The new head coach handed England debuts to Newcastle’s Dan Burn and the Arsenal prodigy Myles Lewis-Skelly. Marcus Rashford made his first start for the national team in more than a year. Albania sit 61 places below England in the Fifa rankings and the gulf in class was obvious from the start. The Albanians were content to sit back and defend, leaving it to England to break them down. The breakthrough came in the 20th minute, when Lewis-Skelly latched on to a pass from Jude Bellingham, and poked the ball under the legs of the onrushing Albanian goalkeeper. It was a brilliantly taken goal from the youngster on his debut — what a fairytale season Lewis-Skelly is having. Harry Kane scored England’s second goal of the match in the 77th minute, with a sumptuous shot into the corner of the net. Game over.
Tuchel was an animated presence throughout the match — in marked contrast to Southgate who often came across as too passive and ponderous in the dugout. What more can be gleaned from his debut match in charge? Not a lot really, beyond job done. It is on to the next game against Latvia on Monday. The other sides in England’s qualifying group are Andorra and Serbia. Qualification should never be taken as a given but it is fair to say that it would be a footballing calamity if England didn’t top the group and gain automatic qualification for next summer’s World Cup tournament which will be held in 16 cities across the United States, Canada and Mexico.
It is hard not to get excited by the prospect of the national team being coached by an elite level manager who has won the biggest prizes in club football and is still at the peak of his powers. Not even Southgate’s staunchest admirers would describe him as Tuchel’s equal in that regard. Even so, it is worth bearing in mind that Southgate’s England routinely qualified for the big tournaments (not always a guarantee in the past). The team, no matter how poorly they played, somehow always managed to reach the latter stages of international tournaments. This presents Tuchel with a unique challenge. It is not enough to qualify for a major tournament, nor is it good enough to reach the latter stages. Tuchel will be judged on one thing alone — whether he can actually go all the way and win the World Cup. Anything less would be deemed a failure and rightly so.
In the interim, the new England head coach gets a free pass — for a while at least. He has already generated headlines with his blunt observations about the national team’s failings under Southgate. Asked whether he thought England had a clear way of playing before his appointment, Tuchel was blunt: ‘Not last summer, no.’ When pressed on what was missing, he didn’t waste time on diplomatic niceties. ‘They were more afraid to drop out of the tournament in my observation than having the excitement and hunger to win,’ he said.
His comments have been backed up by the team captain, Harry Kane, who admitted that the squad was ‘a little bit light on leadership’ in Germany. A rather startling admission. Tuchel has also made clear that he does not want to get involved in political or social issues, the way Southgate did. ‘I think at some point it must be allowed for a football team that is sent to a World Cup to be a football team and not be a political statement.’ Hallelujah to that. Whether it works out that way in practice remains to be seen.
All in all, Tuchel is off to a good start, both on and off the pitch. He represents a welcome break from the stifling tedium of the Southgate era. All that is required now is for him to take England to ultimate victory at next summer’s World Cup. It is a big ask but if anyone can do it, Tuchel can.
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