One of the problems of international football is that everybody is always asking the wrong question, which to an extent is built into the form. Qualifiers matter only in as much as they have to be negotiated. Friday’s win by England over Albania fell into a very familiar pattern. The brave new world of Thomas Tuchel turned out to look a lot like the faded old world of Gareth Southgate. England had lots of the ball, did not move it fast enough and won by a couple of goals. It does not matter. They could have won 10-0, 8-5 or 1-0 and it would mean almost nothing in terms of the winning of the World Cup.
England want to win the World Cup next summer. They have a squad that should make them challengers. Barring pratfalls, there will come a point next year when they will play an Argentina or a Spain or a France, a team of equivalent or greater talent and, almost certainly, that is what will determine whether they are successful.
But before that they will have a dozen or so games against teams with less lofty aspirations who, as with Albania, set out in a deep block. There was a period when Southgate’s England were very good at those games: they scored 39 goals in 10 qualifiers for the last World Cup. But they still lost to France in the quarter-finals. Fabio Capello’s England scored 34 goals in 10 qualifiers for 2010, then were grindingly awful in South Africa. Racking up hatfuls of goals in qualifying is evidence of nothing more than that you are good at racking up hatfuls of goals in qualifying.
At this stage, there are two things Tuchel has to do. He has to make sure England do get to the World Cup – and Serbia and Albania away will not be easy – while at the same time beginning to construct a side capable of playing against teams who will operate in a very different way from their opponents in qualifying. Much of that work will happen on the training pitch, away from the public eye. Much of it is to do with having a plan and then tweaking and refining it as he goes along and not being distracted by flavour-of-the-month players and the clamour that builds around them. Tournaments are usually won by systems and environments, and almost never by bolters who suddenly hit form in the April and May just before a tournament.
Friday was not perfect. England, as Tuchel acknowledged, did not move the ball as quickly as he would have liked them to, did not get it wide soon enough or often enough to stretch the play. There were a couple of moments of defensive anxiety, in part caused by overcommitting against extremely passive opponents. Dan Burn heading the ball out of Jordan Pickford’s hands was not a model of north-eastern communication and cooperation. But fundamentally it was fine. Good enough. Three points. Tick. And there was one moment to offer real hope.
At the last Euros, which, despite the fact they got to the final, was Southgate’s worst tournament, there were three major problems. The absence of a left-back was happily resolved by picking a left-back, which leaves two quandaries. England lack a player who can sit deep in midfield, break up opposition attacks and control the tempo of a game – a Rodri, an N’Golo Kanté, a Toni Kroos. It is not that that sort of player is essential for winning tournaments, but having one would balance a midfield with Declan Rice and Jude Bellingham. Curtis Jones may be the answer, although his natural tendency is to push higher than would be ideal. There were a couple of instances when Albania were able to break into space that, say, Rodri would have been occupying, but it was a start. It may come.
But probably the most significant flaw last summer was that Harry Kane, quite apart from his fitness struggles, did not fit with the players behind him. One of his great gifts is the capacity to drop deep; to ask him not to do that, to stay high and occupy the box, is to remove a key part of his game and also what should be a valuable weapon for England in dragging opposing defences out of position. But that then needs players who will run beyond Kane, to exploit the space he has created. At the Euros, England did not have that – they had Bellingham, Phil Foden and Bukayo Saka clogging up the zone Kane was moving into – which is one of the reasons they always looked more dangerous when a more frontrunning centre-forward, Ivan Toney or Ollie Watkins, came on.
The sort of interaction that became familiar with Kane and Son Heung-min at Tottenham, Kane dropping deep, spinning and pinging a pass into the path of a charging Son, is very difficult to achieve against a side who sit deep as Albania did and leave no space for opponents to run into. But after 26 minutes on Friday it happened: Kane dropped deep, three England players went beyond him and he played a pass to Marcus Rashford. It was a challenging pass, it came to Rashford at an awkward height and his touch was slightly heavy, but it had at least been possible and had been attempted.
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Rashford’s form is uncertain, only just returning after escaping Manchester United for Aston Villa, but at his best he offers England something they desperately need: a direct runner into that space in behind Kane who, at his best, is an excellent finisher. Rashford may not have the technical ability of Cole Palmer or Saka, and he may not have the tactical brain of Foden, but it may be that by having the right attributes to offer balance, he ends up being more important than any of them.
It was a glint, no more. Much of Friday’s game comprised the hypnotic retention of possession, the gentle probing, that has become characteristic of home England qualifiers. But in that one pass, there were perhaps the very early signs of what Tuchel’s England may be, of a balance and a method that can succeed.
