The problem we’ve got here is that nobody can quite bring themselves to care.
When Thomas Tuchel was first appointed England manager he came up with the ingenious promise to lean into the tactical ideals of the Premier League (fast, physical, direct attacking football), in a single press conference defining the nation’s DNA and discovering its major asset.
That idea, of course, was trashed in the World Cup semi-final defeat to Argentina when Tuchel cowered into a deep-lying 5-4-1 for the final 30 minutes and then decided, in the aftermath, that this was the national “DNA” and he was powerless to overcome it.
Perhaps sensing the atmosphere was turning against him, last week Tuchel finally appeared to admit some culpability: “even my mindset is maybe like: let's just overcome it, and it's too early, too early for that mindset”.
Nevertheless a consensus was building that Tuchel needed a big performance, needed to rediscover the real DNA, if he was to stay in the job.
And, OK, he got one. Spain were treated to a sweeping, thrilling, wild 90 minutes at Wembley defined – if you choose to look at it this way – by some Premier League-style football from the hosts.
England counter-attacked and transitioned and pressed like a proper Tuchel club team and a proper English top-flight team, something the manager was keen to point out: “I think we had 12 or 15 more ball wins in the opponent’s half than Spain today.”
Only a missed Harry Kane penalty with the score at 2-1 prevented England from ending the world champions’ 38-game unbeaten record, and doing so with bold attacking football.
But here’s the thing: Does anyone really care?
The Nations League has succeeded in ramping up the value of what were once achingly tedious autumn friendlies but the competition still holds little credit. Spain and England played with the kind of freedom – the wide-open spaces, the unrestrained forward thinking – that was far more reminiscent of the World Cup third-place play-off than the semi-final.
So, never mind that England still lost the game, never mind that Spain could easily have scored three or four before Tuchel’s side first equalised, and never mind that the visitors finished with an xG of 3.12.
The story– real or imagined; a Tuchel revival or not – is rendered meaningless by the essential irrelevance of the game. The way England laboured but ultimately overcame a ten-man Czechia 2-0 a few days later only confirmed that nothing, really, can be learnt from games like these.
All of which is to say that international management is unique in that its entire purpose comes down to a few games once every two years, and as such the role should be judged differently.
England were wrong to give Tuchel a contract extension prior to the World Cup because, for all intents and purposes, he hadn’t managed a ‘real’ game yet. They were wrong to keep him in the job after the semi-final because we simply won’t know anything about his supposed rebuild until early July 2028.
And it is wrong to make judgements on Tuchel’s England after any Nations League fixture, no matter the performance or result.
Pundits are lining up to praise England for their glorious 3-2 defeat to Spain, but a “that’s more like it” analysis completely misses the point. What Tuchel got wrong was, by his own “mindset” admission, buckling under the intense pressure of a World Cup semi-final.
Until those conditions are replicated we cannot know anything. Putting on a show in a friendly bears zero resemblance to the real thing, no more so than Manchester United having fun in the Miami sun in July tells us how they’ll handle Liverpool at Anfield in November.
That is not Tuchel’s fault. All he can do is make the right noises, turn the dial back towards the tactical style that was promised, hand minutes to more progressive types like Trent Alexander-Arnold.
But the fact we cannot judge anything from these games is the reason why the FA’s decision to keep Tuchel in the job is an enormous gamble. There are no tests, no measures, no increments. Stuff will happen, then the Euros will roll around and Tuchel’s team will either rise to the occasion or buckle.
The only evidence we will have, between now and July 2028, is what we saw in Atlanta. And that evidence remains damning.
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