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You don’t win World Cups by running riot for 10 minutes in mid-June but this felt like the start of something newWalking away from Dallas Stadium, feet throbbing in the heat of the late-evening Texas tarmac, it was tempting to picture the scene inside England’s dressing room three hours earlier, the score 2-2 at half-time against a perky Croatia, with Thomas Tuchel’s side in danger of slipping into a familiar tournament pattern of entropy and angst.What exorcism was performed here? Did England’s players burn a ceremonial John Lewis merino wool slim-fit quarter zip? Did Tuchel deliver his calm, tactically focused half-time speech while simultaneously sawing the head off the lifesize Gareth Southgate effigy the team still carries around with it, before inviting his players to whack it like a piñata, open letters tumbling from the waistcoat pockets, leadership mottoes and worries about penalties scattered across the floor as its bearded and frowning head steadily deflates, a moment of pure era-shedding catharsis?There are no second acts in American World Cup lives. Except, it turns out, if your manager can find the right words after a first half during which England played episodic, mechanical football, when they seemed to be still in the old-mannered routines, assembling their siege towers and engines of war, football reduced to the status of stuff that happens in between corners.It would be wrong to describe that second half as a shedding of the Gareth-shaped homunculus on this team’s back. But sometimes you do have to stop trusting the process, change the patterns, and just run forward with a great deal more aggression. England burned an effigy of everything they used to be in the second half in Dallas. Is it real? And where will it lead them across the next two games and five weeks beyond that?The most notable part was the sense of seeing an era-shift happen in real time. If the first half felt like the least flattering notes of Southgate-ism, the second was something closer to whatever it is Tuchel wants England to do now, hunters not gatherers, a team that believes it can actively win games of football rather than waiting for its opponents to die of old age.This was a genuine break from the usual narrative pattern of these occasions, those days when England fade and wilt, the football of the plodding drum. Instead, England had more, not less, energy as the game progressed. They took 22 shots at goal, three-quarters of them in that second half. In their last tournament opener, the 1-0 win against Serbia, they had four shots all game and played like a team trying to run a marathon inside a Victorian diving suit.Nobody with any sense of scale is suggesting England are now ready to win a World Cup, or that they didn’t look in Dallas like a team that could just as easily lose one. But there are positives. They have now played a proper fixture and beaten a good team, both firsts in the Tuchel era. Key attacking players have scored and assisted. Marcus Rashford, an excellent impact sub, looked happy and loose and frankly quite alarming to all those tiring thirtysomething defenders out there.Plus, with all due respect to the cultural impact of Southgate’s England, we got a glimpse in Dallas of what a genuinely elite tactical manager might do with that legacy. There will be a lot of talk about the Surge, that period after half-time when England basically ran all over Croatia, as the midfield pressed harder up the pitch and played more aggressive and more accurate vertical passes.Tuchel talked afterwards about England’s fans enjoying this spectacle in the pub, and there is a point here about connection, the way people want to see their team play, the way England fans support the team. The Surge wasn’t exactly pub football, four-pints football. It felt more chemical, more wired and wild-eyed, football of the pre-match buttock-launching firework party.The point has been made that England played like a Premier League team, but they were more like a Premier League team of the 2000s, all galloping adrenaline, running power, the can’t-live-with-it thrusts. This is not in itself a recipe for victory against elite opponents. But the key is that this team has that in its chamber. The ability to overwhelm is in there. The backpack is loaded with ordnance. The Surge was a warning to the rest of the field that while you will have chances to take this team down, you’re also going to get clipped yourself.Tuchel’s substitutions were also progressive. At 3-2 up the England playbook states that you protect and fall back. But Tuchel did not reach for Jordan Henderson, who really does appear to be present here as the midfield equivalent of an emotional support dog. Instead, he sent on three attackers, then rejigged again as the midfield began to look a little open.It would also be wrong to overlook the good bits in that first half. The set-piece threat is a genuine asset, and England really should have scored twice more from corners. Even the first-half penalty carried some vindication of Tuchel’s selection policy, a foul caused by one very quick, agile footballer outmanoeuvring a 40-year-old. This will happen when that’s how you stack your team. England may lack some craft, but they can also be physically horrible to play against.It was a good post-match for Tuchel too, one where he still jabbed a little at Jude Bellingham, even after his best game for England. “He has learned to be a team player,” was Tuchel’s verdict, which is quite funny and salty and naggy. Keep Bellingham hungry. Make him want to prove things. This feels like a good line.There was merit too in the unusually chippy half-time chat from Anthony Barry, a reflection of the fact Tuchel doesn’t care about upsetting people, doesn’t follow the regimental line of sombre deference and respect for fame and status.Instead Tuchel has a refreshing brusqueness as England manager, like the Victorian stepfather who will slap you on the back as he sends you off to boarding school, but who really doesn’t want to hear anything about doubt, fear, flags, heavy shirts and so on. It is a major asset, used right, for a team that had become a bit mannered and sombre in its previous guises.There are clearly elements for England to fix. Luka Modric is more gnarled these days: less little boy dressed up as a witch, more former four-time surfing champion of Middle-earth. He was eventually harried from the pitch in Dallas. But England’s midfield is still a problem. The spacing felt wrong in the first half. Declan Rice is carrying an injury. Midfield is always key in knockout football, in those periods when the ability to control the tempo becomes the key asset. Do they have the ability to play that way too now?The defence also looks rusty. England’s starting attack fitted the Tuchel model of energy and speed, but also looked thin on paper. The good news is England’s starting front three in Dallas have 85 goals between them. The bad news is 81 of those have been scored by Harry Kane. This had better work, Thomas.The good news is Kane looked happy in the system, with runners ahead of him and space to drop deep. Even his retaken penalty carried a premonition of the half-time regearing. There are no second acts in American lives. Except when a goalkeeper has clearly encroached by leaving his goalline. The retake was just right. Don’t stutter and wait, Harry. Spank it into the corner.Does any of it mean much in the longer term? England don’t often start well, even in their better summers. We remember the last-gasp burgle against Tunisia on the fly-ravaged banks of the Volga, the 1-1 against Ireland in 1990, which felt like watching a medieval game of bladder wrestle in a Gloucestershire village.There is also a long way to go. You don’t win it by running riot for 10 minutes in mid-June. But there was something different here, and Tuchel is their key asset in this regard, if only as a point of difference, the polar opposite of sclerotic tactical caution and the weight of caring a little too much. Whatever happens from here this feels like progress. England: now available in fun form.

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The way substitutes combined for the fourth goal against Croatia vindicated Thomas Tuchel’s desire to instil a brotherhood ethosIt is Bukayo Saka who ignites the move. Tight to the right, approaching halfway, the England winger turns on a sixpence and surges away from Josko Gvardiol. Saka’s work in tight spaces, his close control, is a consistent delight.He plays a pass up and inside for Morgan Rogers and, at this point, Djed Spence is running on the outside. Rogers looks for him but Nikola Vlasic slides in to challenge and the ball breaks. Saka is alive to it, slicing inside and beating Josip Sutalo. England sense the knockout blow because Saka has options, the best being Marcus Rashford over to the left. Croatia have only Josip Stanisic back. Saka goes to Rashford, who steadies himself, jinks inside Stanisic and sidefoots low into the bottom corner.It is a beautiful goal and it gives England an unassailable 4-2 lead in the 85th minute. Their World Cup is off to a flyer and if they have confirmation – validation, too – of a swashbuckling second-half performance, a shift in the collective mindset, there is a detail that Thomas Tuchel cannot ignore.Ever since he came into the job, the England manager has been obsessed with the creation of a brotherhood in his squad; players who can put their main-men club personas to the side for the greater good, who, if they are asked to play 20 minutes or even only 10, will do so with everything they have. For Tuchel, the clinching goal against Croatia was the purest example of what he has wanted to see because Saka and Rogers, Spence and Rashford had all come on as substitutes.For Rashford, in particular, it must have been a tough one to take when Tuchel said he was starting with Anthony Gordon on the left rather than him. Rashford was lively in the first half of England’s World Cup warm-up game against New Zealand; Gordon not so in the second period. And yet Tuchel was not entirely happy. When he criticised his first-half team for lacking positional discipline, it came to feel as though he had Rashford in mind. Tuchel started Gordon in the second and final warm-up match against Costa Rica, giving him 71 minutes and being rewarded with a driving performance.Although Rashford flickered again when he came on to replace him – as did all the substitutes – Tuchel knew he had to go with Gordon against Croatia.Here in the US there is a glamour in Major League Baseball about the role of closing pitcher; the player who leaves the bullpen towards the end to get the team home. It is not the same in football. No one wants to be a closer. And yet Tuchel knows his version of them will be crucial. Can he sell them as the heroes of his squad?‘We needed this quality [from the substitutes] to bring it over the line,” he said. “I know they are all starters. So it is new for them. But they also know it is a period of time that is so special and they buy into this idea that we do it as a team. This is the only way.“We are so strong from the bench and I was so impressed with everyone against Costa Rica, for example, because they pushed on the buttons and pushed on the gas and kept suffocating the opponent.”Rashford’s finish against Croatia was a champagne moment for him; only his second goal in 13 England appearances under Tuchel. The other was the stoppage-time penalty for 5-0 against Serbia in Belgrade last September. It feels like a 50-50 decision for Tuchel between Rashford and Gordon. And with Gordon not playing well against Croatia, the debate will rage over who ought to start against Ghana on Tuesday.It is not quite the same on the opposite wing between Saka and Noni Madueke, the dynamics skewed by Saka’s lack of full fitness. He continues to manage an achilles problem and, the way that Tuchel talked, it did not sound as though Saka would be a starting option against Ghana.“Bukayo is ready and will get more and more ready,” he said. “I think once we go to the last game of this group [against Panama on Saturday week] he will be ready. He was strong in training on Tuesday in small spaces. It was just a matter of if the game [against Croatia] was open and was up and down.”Like Saka, Madueke likes to cut inside on to his stronger left foot. Unlike Saka, he does not appear to trust his right as much. Remember his horrible moment against Costa Rica when he dribbled around the goalkeeper to the right of goal only to take on the finish with his left foot and hit the post? His body shape was wrong.Madueke did go on the outside a couple of times against Croatia to good effect, most notably when he crossed low for Jude Bellingham on the half-hour; the midfielder just could not convert. Madueke’s pace is such a threat. His performance against Croatia gave Tuchel encouragement and food for thought.“All four of the wingers are competing against each other at the highest level,” Tuchel said. “We had some 10 against 10s in training, some finishing patterns, attacking patterns, defensive patterns. Everyone is on but on in such a respectful way that we had some tough decisions to make.“They know we will need them and the time will come when they start. The time will come when they can finish and be decisive from the bench. It is now four more weeks and in four weeks you can swallow it and digest it and buy into it. We selected the group because we were sure that they could do it and they all can.”

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Manager said second-half performance was ‘rewarding’England’s next group game is against Ghana on 23 JuneThomas Tuchel said he wanted his England team to entertain the nation and that he pictured the scenes in the pubs as his players took the handbrake off to power past ­Croatia 4-2 in their World Cup opener on Wednesday.England were passive in the first half, too deep, the connections lacking. They entered the interval at 2-2, Harry Kane’s goals cancelled out by a pair of soft concessions that were in keeping with the team’s openness.But England exploded into life at the start of the second half, Jude ­Bellingham’s surging run and finish in the 47th minute the spark for an extraordinary period of pressure. Tuchel had told the players to calm down during the interval, not to worry about the result and be true to their way of playing.After Bellingham’s goal, they had seven clear openings leading up the hour, albeit they could not take them. Croatia were rocking and Tuchel knew the pubs in England would be the same. Croatia had a couple of moments when they might have equalised before the England substitute Marcus Rashford sealed the win in the 85th minute after a clinical counterattack.It is unclear whether a gung-ho approach will lead to World Cup glory, but the performance has ignited a sense of possibility and Tuchel is keen to harness the momentum. England’s next game is against Ghana on Tuesday.Tuchel was asked whether fans could expect England to take the handbrake off during the tournament. “It is what the boys did in the second half – exactly that,” he said. “It is good. That is what needs to be done. Nobody can guarantee the outcome, but we can guarantee the effort.“Can we expect more of that? Yes. It is good and it is rewarding. Hopefully everybody enjoyed it. And it brings a connection. I had a thought in the second half: ‘People in the pubs will like this.’“I was sweating, but that is a good watch where we created and ­created and went for it and won another ball and then a second ball. That is why you are in a pub and watching together on a big screen to get emotional and hopefully we can transmit that.”Tuchel’s frustration with England’s first-half performance was rooted in how they dropped too deep out of possession, seeking to protect the 1-0 lead that Kane’s early penalty had given them. It was a classic England move – or failing. Tuchel wants to see only aggressive, front-foot football.“We just dropped way too early into a deep block,” Tuchel said. “From a middle block … way too early into a deep block. Normally if we go to a middle block it’s not a problem. We have clear triggers to go out of it into a high press.“We wanted to have John Stones pushing into midfield [from central defence]. They blocked John with their No 9 so maybe they also knew or it was a coincidence. It took us a while to understand that Elliot [Anderson] can then push [from central midfield].“So we lost a bit of confidence, couldn’t find the right triggers and we had the feeling that we have to protect something. We ended up too deep and too passive. In the second half, it was much better. We were much more active and aggressive.”Tuchel said the conditions inside Dallas Stadium were a challenge, despite it being a domed air-conditioned venue, and that Stones had “cramps in both legs in the end”. The defender has not played many matches since early December. Kane also suffered cramp in the dressing room afterwards but is understood to be OK. Declan Rice intends to soldier on despite hamstring and lower-back discomfort.“We saw the [physical] numbers – the players really put a shift in,” Tuchel said. “They said it was quite humid and difficult to digest it so I think John was just like everyone else … everyone was very tired in the dressing room, which I like because then I know that you did something. And we need this. Overcoming the tough moments, sticking together.”

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Storming second-half display comes after coach’s speechCoach tells team to ‘show the world what we can be’Harry Kane has revealed that a half-time speech from Thomas Tuchel when he told England “to show the world what we can be” inspired victory in their opening match of the 2026 World Cup.Croatia equalised twice before half-time after Kane had equalled Gary Lineker’s record for goals scored by an England player at the World Cup finals with a penalty and a header from Declan Rice’s corner. But a much-improved performance in the second half saw Jude Bellingham re-establish England’s lead before Marcus Rashford came off the bench to wrap up the victory late on.“He told us to take the shackles off, calm down and let’s go. He said what’s the worst that can happen? Show the world who we can be,” said Kane of Tuchel’s rousing speech.“We came out in the second half full gas and they couldn’t live with it, and that’s the level we have to set in every game. The way we controlled the game once we went ahead, we never really looked like we were in danger and then scored on the counterattack. We had a spell where we could have scored three or four. Credit to everyone: the first game of the tournament and a great result against a tough side.”Bellingham added: “It wasn’t one of those where it was a big drama or standing up and shouting; it was what the team needed. We have a mature group with great leaders in there; everyone knew the level we had to get to. The start of the second half gave us a great platform.”There were concerns when Rice was taken off as a precaution in the second half and Tuchel said the Arsenal midfielder had felt discomfort in his lower back and upper hamstring.“He feels discomfort. And I didn’t want to take any risks. So if I take Declan off, which I never wanted to do,” said Tuchel. “But it was the moment to protect him. I hope it’s nothing more. Declan just reassured me at the end. ‘It’s good, it’s good.’ I know the discomfort and we will take care of it.”The England manager also acknowledged that his players had shown signs of nerves despite going twice ahead but hopes that they will learn from the experience.“Sometimes if you want to get it so perfectly right, you sometimes want it too much and you overthink it,” he said. “In the end, in doubt, we took the decision to go backwards, on and off the ball. We played way too many [passes] backwards, we played way too many back to our goalkeeper. It took us a while to find our confidence. That’s why I said maybe it’s also normal. I had the hope that the goals would help us. It was not the case.”Reflecting on his half-time speech, Tuchel added: “I told them to calm down. We just conceded the goal. To calm down, calm their nerves. And encourage them to do it our way. I told them that my perception of them in the last 17 days will not change no matter what the result is. I want them to do it their way. Our way. I want them to be brave, courageous and tenacious on the front foot. And just go for it.”

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Even as forwards shine, Dallas performance exposes shaky defence that may cost Thomas Tuchel and England dear come the tournament’s sharp endWhen Thomas Tuchel won the Champions League with Chelsea in 2021 the success was built on unflinching defensive rigour and midfield discipline. Five years on, though, Tuchel’s England displayed neither of those qualities during a dreadful first half in Dallas. They kept losing the ball in dangerous areas, struggled to maintain their shape without the ball and were rocking when Croatia stung them with a second equaliser just before half-time.The vibe could hardly have been less convincing. Anthony Barry, Tuchel’s No 2, let rip in an interview with ITV, accusing England of doing all the wrong things, of playing with “a nervous energy”, of making everything “confused and complicated” against opponents well versed in making their craft and experience in midfield count.Of course, England got away with it in the end, the response in the second half astonishing, Barry’s words no doubt delivered in even stronger terms by Tuchel in the dressing room. Yet while they won their opening game in Group L thanks to a moment of breathtaking power from Jude Bellingham and a late breakaway goal from Marcus Rashford, the overall display was far from good enough. The attack spluttered in open play during those first 45 minutes and the press malfunctioned. The spaces between Elliot Anderson and Declan Rice in midfield were too big and although it was better after the break, the main takeaway is that England have no chance of winning the World Cup if they defend this badly in a potential quarter-final against Brazil.It has been easy to fall into the trap of dwelling on the big forwards during the tournament’s opening week. After blistering bursts from Erling Haaland, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé, the stage was set for Harry Kane to step up Wednesday. Inevitably he delivered, scoring twice, first with a retaken penalty and then with a header from a corner. Even so England’s set-piece prowess could not detract from the structural flaws, for it was Croatia who played the silkier football during the first half and capitalised on poor defending to score two exceptional goals from open play.The jitters at the back had set in early, England’s attempt to pass their way out ending with Nico O’Reilly and John Stones conceding a corner on the right. They were thrown by Croatia’s pressing and took a while to respond. There were constant turnovers of possession, exposing the back four, and it was from a ball lost by Bellingham in midfield that Martin Baturina was able to hammer in Croatia’s first goal.The concern for Tuchel is that tournaments are rarely won without a solid defence. England can go blow for blow against some sides, but would they get away it against the very best? It feels unlikely on this evidence, meaning Tuchel’s biggest focus before facing Ghana next week has to be on tightening up at the back. Do not be fooled by the result: England were lucky. There was a stunning surge after Bellingham made it 3-2, Dominik Livakovic forced into a series of saves, but Croatia had chances to score another before Rashford killed them off.In fairness, Croatia have some dangerous forwards and are an excellent tournament team. Beating them is no mean feat and it goes without saying that Tuchel is too smart to look past the defensive frailties. They will also hope that some of the problems in midfield were down to Rice, who joined up with the squad late after the Champions League, tiring before going off midway through the second half. Yet building up Rice’s fitness will be easier than justifying Tuchel’s faith in Stones. The former Manchester City defender barely played last season, was rusty on and off the ball during his 87 minutes on the pitch and was turned too easily by Petar Sucic before the Croat teed up Baturina to whip a shot past Jordan Pickford from 20 yards.This is not a vintage England defence. O’Reilly made his debut at this level and was targeted at left-back. Reece James had issues on the other side and Ezri Konsa wobbled next to Stones. Croatia’s second goal, made by Ivan Perisic and swept in by Petar Musa, found James and Konsa positionally wanting.No doubt Harry Maguire will have something to say on his next podcast appearance. In terms of the options available to Tuchel, though, it might be wise to bring Marc Guéhi in for Stones against Ghana. These lapses are not surprising. Stones has been an incredible servant for England but his minutes have to be managed and he was turned inside out by Ollie Watkins when City lost to Aston Villa last month.A win’s a win, then? Not quite. The format means England are all but guaranteed a place in the last 32 now but Messi, Mbappé and Haaland will be licking their lips when they look at Tuchel’s defence.

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Goal against Croatia in his side’s World Cup opener was an angry one with a rising sense of inevitabilityAnd breathe again. For the opening 45 minutes under the giant Victorian train station roof at the Dallas Stadium, England produced a performance that was a bit like watching one of those YouTube videos where an awkward and frightening Chinese robot has learned how to dance like Michael Jackson.Dogged and occasionally convincing, but the kind of spectacle that does generally end with the robot falling off the stage. England didn’t just play like machines in that first half. They played like faulty machines, scared machines, contributing almost zero free-form football to a 2-2 half-time score that included two Harry Kane set-piece goals; the first a set piece from a set piece, a penalty after a corner, set piece squared.Was this going to be the story here? Is this how we’re going to go down, in a kind of singularity, the death of hope, football as units of action, deathly set moves? Tuchel called it last September. Throw-ins are back. Corners are so hot right now. In that opening half England had those parts, but nothing much else in between.At which point, the most important thing happened, not just in this game, but in Tuchel’s time with England. Credit must go to the manager for whatever he did to these players at half-time. And also to Jude Bellingham, who scored what would turn out to be not just the decisive goal in this 4-2 win, but also a moment of drive and energy that was completely at odds with everything to that point.This wasn’t quite an individualist’s goal, a dribble, or a moment of craft. It was an expression of basic sprinting will. It was an angry goal, and in exactly the right way. Bellingham took the ball in the right channel, running on to a simple pass over the top, and just kept going, veering inside, all drive and focus, with a rising sense of inevitability. He had the speed to leave two defenders mooching in his vapour trial, and the skill to produce a fine, cold, guided finish into the far corner at a full sprint.It wasn’t just that England were 3-2 up in that moment. Or that they looked like a team. More that they looked like they actually wanted to take part in a game of football, that this wasn’t just an activity to be undertaken out of fear and self‑loathing . For the next 10 minutes they swarmed all over Croatia, might have scored four, and gave a glimpse not so much of patterns of play, but of a willingness to actually do this, of the muscle, speed and ruthlessness that are undeniably there in this team.It felt right that Bellingham should be the man to kick over the console table and bring something ragged and raw to the day. It is easy to criticise him at times, given the level of his fame and status, the slight sense of confusion as to what his attributes really are, whether he has the deeper gears, the super-strengths of an elite player, or just the mannerisms and the profile.Some have suggested Bellingham is just a player of elite moments, the only answer to which is, well, he’s 22, and elite moments will do just fine thanks. We’ll take those. Not least when, as here, they can change the entire shape of the day, the energy in the room, perhaps even the way England are going to play here. With any luck the team can now breathe around him for the rest of this tournament. Most significant, by the end, with Marcus Rashford adding another, this felt like something entirely new. It was fun, free, a little rough. England can do this. Who knew?The Dallas Stadium is a genuinely epic arena, rising up out of the dead heat of Texan plain like a crash-landed alien spaceship. Inside, it’s like entering some futuristic microclimate, a place to store your secret island, your ark-full of uber humans for the coming rapture.Before kick-off the spectacle was almost overwhelming from the sealed press box high up in the gods, the huge glazed canopy roof, the red and white, the 160ft screen picking out the terrifying planetary scale heads of members of the crowd.The upper tiers were decked in the well-worn travelling England flags, the roll call of names, Huddersfield, Gillingham, Grimsby, like an alternative shipping forecast.And the opening 12 minutes were all about Harry Kane, who finally got to become a place kicker in an NFL stadium, scoring from a retaken penalty. A little later Kane got to realise his other childhood dream of scoring an Arsenal goal, heading in direct from Declan Rice’s corner following a Croatia equaliser.England stalled from there. They began to totter on their feet, circuit boards smoking. Tuchel was present here in all black, with that familiar look of some founding American settler, a goggle-eyed Dutch farmer in a straw hat out there tilling the lands. He must take credit if not for the start, then for the way England altered the energy here.And also for the balance that became apparent by the end in midfield. Whatever England achieve in the US is likely to centre on how well Rice and Elliot Anderson can drive the game. It seems Tuchel has a type in there: upright, willowy, floppy-haired right-footed Englishmen.It would be a bit of a stretch to suggest anything that happened in Dallas could amount to an act of vengeance for 2018. But England did finally wrest control here against the deathless Luka Modric, 40 years old and a more gnarled figure, but still the same gliding, bobbing miracle of balance and technique.Modric left the field soon after England’s surge. Croatia were probably always there for the taking. But there was hope here, and energy, and best of all something a little ragged and human.

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England’s ‘footballaholic’ head coach may not be motivated by a fan’s passion but he is more than just a gun for hireIdentity lies at the heart of the World Cup. Who are we and how do we play? Does our academy system work better than yours? What do your coaching pathways look like compared with ours? And do you still get a bit emotional every time you watch that BBC montage of England’s penalty shootout win over Colombia at the 2018 World Cup?Maybe not if you happen to be Thomas Tuchel. This is not a man weighed down by the ghosts of England tournaments past. There is no missed penalty haunting this gangly German intellectual in his sleep, no costly red card in a knockout tie stalking his nightmares. For Tuchel, meaning is found merely in the pursuit of victory. At first glance there is no deeper cultural connection here and, for all the breezy talk of putting a second star on the shirt, there are times when it is hard to understand why Tuchel wants to bring an end to England men’s 60 years of hurt this summer.Of course, winning the World Cup would look good on the CV. The attraction of the job is obvious. The rewards are vast and the players are elite. Yet even if it makes sense on a sporting level, it is still fascinating to consider the wider motivation for Tuchel given it is safe to assume he was not supporting England when they lost those semi-finals to the Germans at Italia 90 and Euro 96.It comes back to the idea that what separates international football from the club game is playing for something bigger. For some, the aim is to go down as a legend in your own country, but Tuchel is not from England. He will not sing the national anthem when England face Croatia in their opening game in Group L in Dallas on Thursday. Will there be criticism from the usual suspects? Perhaps, but Tuchel is unlikely to care. He knows the words – “It is not so difficult,” he said with a grin – and explained that he still feels too shy to join in when the music strikes up.Tuchel’s predecessor brought a different energy. Gareth Southgate almost treated the England job as a higher calling. He spoke about politics and behaved like a man trying to heal the nation. Southgate wrote an open letter about society’s divisions and ended up being played by Joseph Fiennes in the stage and television versions of Dear England.There is none of that with Tuchel. His title is head coach rather than manager. He is not interested in talking about politics and his background means he is never going to become as overwhelmed by the job as Southgate was by the end of his time in charge.Still, though, there are layers to Tuchel. As a young coach he rose through the German pressing school. He has been described as a “footballaholic” and is bright, engaging and funny. His eccentric streak appeals to England’s love of a maverick, yet the willingness to speak his mind can sometimes feel very un-English. It is hard, for instance, to picture Southgate ever calling one of his players repulsive.“Thomas is almost Latin in the way he speaks,” the FA’s technical director, John McDermott, said in Inside England, a book about the team’s journey over the past decade. “There’s a warmth and there’s a tactileness. He comes alive when he’s speaking about the team, the players, the games.”Tuchel did not click with the French media when he managed Paris Saint-Germain and has a reputation for being a hothead in Germany. He fell out with Joshua Kimmich at Bayern Munich and has always sounded ambivalent when talking about German football.England is where he most comes alive. It felt right for Tuchel when he became Chelsea’s manager in January 2021 and led them to Champions League glory four months later. Lockdown measures were still in place, but the 52-year-old talked enthusiastically about wanting to discover London’s bookshops and best coffee spots. “It’s the country, it’s the humour, it’s the way of life,” Tuchel once said of his love of England as a country.He is not putting it on. He likes zooming around the capital on Lime bikes. He has found his favourite gastropub and when he was younger he loved to pretend to be Chris Waddle “with the collar up in my garden” after watching the England winger during the 1990 World Cup.Perhaps Tuchel’s desire to lead England to glory is not such a mystery. Unlike Fabio Capello, he gets the culture. His favourite novel? TC Boyle’s Water Music, a story about a London thief and a Scottish explorer as they seek the source of the Niger River in Africa in the 18th century. The impression is that Tuchel feels a connection with England. Asked if he is an anglophile, he says: “I can’t explain it but it felt like this from the first weeks at Chelsea. It just felt so good to be in the country and a part of the Premier League. Every day was a gift almost.“What the league brings out of players and what the fans expect from the players, the coach made me feel very comfortable. I liked it from the first day. I cannot say often enough, it’s an honour for me to be England head coach. I feel basically at home when I land. I would say now: ‘I fly home.’ I fly home to my home in London. It feels like home when I land in London and I’m in England.”This is more than an expensive gun for hire. Tuchel cares. The longer he stays the less he feels like an outsider.

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Tuchel’s multicultural squad are less burdened by narrative than previous teams and can embrace the chance to live in the momentNice World Cup you’ve got there. Be a shame if something … happened to it. The opening acts of this bloated, roided-up summer tournament have been surprisingly fun, light and sparky.Surprising, that is, if you’ve absorbed much of its doom-laden buildup. Football always does this. There is a reason this sport has become humanity’s great brain-wipe distractor ray, the tool of mega-brands and jumped-up administrators with a Football Jesus fetish. You can stretch it thin, loan it out to despotic regimes. But the games will still be good. Football remains an indestructible substance.So we’ve had joy and Cape Verdean tears, bow tie-twirling host nation razzmatazz, fans who seem, of all things, just happy to be here. In the United States the World Cup has felt like just another high functioning element of the leisure-sphere. It’s David Beckham selling chainsaws, crisps and beer. It’s Chuck Flipburger beaming into a camera outside the Anusol Megadrome saying: “Spain’s super-duper-star Lamine Yarrmaarrrl.”Even the games have been fearless and flowing and not, for example, dominated by a weird sense that everyone has their legs on backwards, that the ball is filled with helium and fear, that the whole experience is analogous to stabbing yourself in both eyes with a knitting needle made from pork-pie meat and self-loathing. Yeah, well. Enjoy that while you can.You can sit there playing with your silly little machines as much as you like. I’ll show you a World Cup. Close to a week in, with almost an entire round of cloudless group games in the bag, the coffin lid is starting to creak. By late Monday morning the first little knots of Three Lions shirts could be seen wandering the blank, baking streets of Dallas, blinking in the light. England are at the door. And it’s time for a vibe shift.Well, maybe. England will play Croatia on Wednesday at the Dallas Stadium, a thrillingly vast concrete dome dumped down in the low, throbbing plains to the south of the city. It is a genuinely spectacular venue, sealed on all sides beneath its swooping panelled roof, with the feel inside of a vast and humid tropical shed, a place to keep your pet stegosaurus.That Group L opener will be England’s first proper game in two years, a first meaningful regeneration of the England football identity since the last days of Gareth in Berlin, and as ever an opportunity to find out two things. First: are they any good? And second: what will it feel like? What is the energy? How much will it hurt? More importantly this time around, will people still care like they’re supposed to care?This has been the dualism of England football. Results can often seem like a distracting subplot from England content, England feelings, the idea that every tournament appearance is an angst-ridden referendum on national identity. Euro 2024 was the perfect example, marked by howls of frustration, booing of the players, hatred of the manager, blocked systems, basically just a disaster; but simultaneously the most successful overseas men’s tournament ever.There has been a shift in the nature of this. Interest in England football drops through the floor between tournaments these days but returns in reliably feverish form once the games begin. The change is also textural. You wouldn’t write a song about “hurt” any more. Younger people don’t feel the same bruised and helpless longing for victory. The England women’s team have won two tournaments. Club football and celebrity player-fawning have entered that space.The signifiers of England fandom, the songs, the yearning, the beer in the air, have been ritualised, transformed into a semi-ironical costume party, another way of going to the pub. This is not to say extreme England fandom has dissipated. People still love and follow the team. But this has also been radicalised on the fringes.It is worth noting a strange online event that flared up around England’s pre-World Cup friendlies, one that may come again now, and which speaks also to a defining early note of this World Cup. In the days after England’s 1-0 victory over New Zealand in Tampa there was a surge of nakedly racist posts, mainly on X, about England’s players not singing the national anthem, or singing it with insufficient gusto. Thomas Tuchel was asked about this in Kansas City and shrugged it off.But it is now out here, a lever, a wedge for targeted division. It feels even more jarring at a World Cup where there has already been a great deal of chat about cross-border nationality, about countries as porous, mutable things: the Swedish-Tunisian scoring goals for Sweden against Tunisia, the Curaçao team of dual-nationality Dutch.This is not a loss of shape, or a blurring of meaning, or the dissolution of the World Cup as a robust entity. This is the World Cup telling us what countries are, what countries have done, how countries become countries.England have a remarkable squad in many ways, one that reflects clearly the history of the nation. Of 26 players, 20 had the option to play for another country under Fifa heritage rules. Eight have Caribbean ancestry, 10 African, four Irish and three Scottish. A record low number, six of 26, are English and only English. It takes a wilful ignorance of history to interpret this as some kind of betrayal, migrant opportunism, or whatever the line is. It is instead a fine-point portrait of what England is and has been.Here’s an interesting stat. This World Cup is being contested by 48 nations. At some point in its relentlessly feisty imperial history, England or Britain have either invaded, occupied or taken military action against 44 of them (albeit this requires the broadest definition of all these things). The exceptions are Sweden, Uzbekistan and Côte d’Ivoire, who should all probably be watching their backs right now, particularly you, Sweden.And England aren’t alone here. Belgium have five players of Congolese descent, not because of some random insurgency but because Belgium effected a violent occupation of Congo for 75 years. Similarly, Curaçao’s rise on the back of its Dutch dual-heritage diaspora isn’t a haggle or a cheat, but instead a legacy of the slave trade and the Dutch presence in the Caribbean, the cradle of Dutch wealth, the birth of the modern nation. The World Cup is teaching us about the world here, giving us a map of how those borders were made and reinforced.All of which makes the question of who does or doesn’t sing a song before a football match seem a little by-the-by. Never mind that singing the anthem hasn’t really done much good anyway; every one of the great canonical defeats was accompanied by Tony Adams or similar belting it out on a roasting foreign field.The anthem does, however, lead into the more fun side of the tournament. Are England a better, lighter, more adaptable team now? Englishness was Southgate’s key obsession, to the extent his “where art thou, England?” stuff may have become a limiting factor by the end. Even this week’s pre-tournament message, putting himself centre stage by insisting he doesn’t want to be centre stage, felt a bit like your dear old dying dad passive-aggressively insisting he doesn’t want any flowers when he’s gone. No really, don’t even think about me.Now England have Tuchel, who really doesn’t care and who is in his state of extreme pragmatism probably closer to this generation of players. Premier League hype-derangement aside, England are somewhere between fifth and eighth favourites to win the World Cup, behind France, Spain, Argentina and Portugal and level-ish with the Netherlands, Germany, Brazil, Morocco and Belgium.They have four very good players: Harry Kane, Declan Rice, Reece James and Jude Bellingham, plus a very reliable tournament goalkeeper. The midfield still lacks the extreme possession-based craft that wins tight knockout games. A semi-final would be a fine achievement. A quarter-final would be par, although even this may involve beating Mexico in Mexico City and Brazil in Miami.One key plus point: the episodic, broken-up nature of play might suit Tuchel’s style, his interest in set pieces, the barked in-game battleship manoeuvres, the gangling arms at the drinks break. Much will depend on how Kane and Bellingham work together, how willing Bellingham is to make runs without the ball, to vacate the spaces where Kane likes to lurk.Best of all, nothing is coming home here, because nothing ever was coming home, because there is nothing to come home. The team reflects the country, in so far as anything can reflect a country. Expectations seem reassuringly room temperature. Perhaps, for once, England may even have a single-track tournament experience, live in the moment, not the Arthurian past, and rise or fall simply on the merits of here and now.

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England’s squad arrived at Swope Soccer Village, their World Cup base, to find locals (and the local police) out in forceBefore Thomas Tuchel and his England players departed for the United States, there was talk about their World Cup training ground in Kansas City being too open. It was motivated, in part, by the Southampton Spygate scandal. Would England’s rivals be able to steal a glance at them? Tuchel even said that the Football Association would look to erect protective fences.The nine-pitch facility at Swope Soccer Village is certainly sprawling but here’s the thing. Nobody is getting on site without going past the armed police officers at the entrance. There was a throwaway line from a steward on Saturday as England trained on the complex’s showpiece pitch after flying in from Florida after their pre-tournament camp. “You guys see spying,” he said. “We see personal security.” The latter rather overrides the former. It was safe to say that they have it covered.The buildup to England’s arrival was further coloured by the theft of some of their kit in transit from Florida, including boots and footballs. Again, it did not feel like much of issue. Everything was recovered; two arrests have been made. “My boots?” said the goalkeeper, Dean Henderson. “I’ve got them on my feet so it’s all good. We got them all back so it’s nice.”There did not seem to be much to fret about as the players went through a light session that lasted about an hour – if training under blue skies and a blazing sun that pushed the mercury to 29C can be described as light. The second chapter of England’s summer adventure has started and if the focus is about to narrow and the intensity pick up, then the excitement has gone up a few notches, too.The opening tie against Croatia in Dallas on Wednesday is edging closer and the good news is that England look to have what they need at Swope and, indeed, their hotel – the four-star, 54-room Inn at Meadowbrook, which is a 20-minute drive away.England always wanted to stay in Kansas City because of its location in the centre of the US and how it would mitigate their travel distances to matches; the plan is to fly in and out for each assignment, the FA having been clear about the benefits of a fixed base, a home.England were denied the first pick of Kansas City’s training bases and even the second one because they were not drawn to play any of their group phase games here. Argentina and the Netherlands were and the former bagged the best facility – Sporting Kansas City’s performance centre. The latter went for the training ground of the women’s team, the KC Current, which is newer than Swope, perhaps a little slicker-looking. As an aside, a fourth nation – Algeria, who have matches in Kansas City – have ended up at the University of Kansas facility.But Swope, which is home to Sporting KC’s second team and their academy sides, ticked the boxes for Tuchel and the FA. It was particularly reassuring to see the quality of the pitch they used on Saturday – in light of scare stories about that aspect of things. England will rely on a different grass surface which is around the back of the main building but the reality is that it is of the same standard. And the standard is high. Local media described all three grass pitches at Swope – the other six are astroturf – as among the best in the state. They are absolutely comparable to those that Argentina and the Netherlands will use.The FA has put a new gym in at Swope and created a lounge for the players and they are happy, too, with the intimate Inn at Meadowbrook, which they have taken over exclusively. There are a number of permanent residents that live on condos close to the site and their access to areas like the principal restaurant will be restricted while England stay there. To say thank you, Tuchel’s players will have a meet and greet with them.The training session at Swope was open to a number of local children, who were specially invited and thrilled to be there. Harry Kane felt a lot of love. “Harry, you’re better than Bellingham,” screamed one over-excited youngster. There were banks of media at one end of the pitch.What stood out for England was the warmth of the welcome. The locals were out in force with flags and signs as they drove up to the hotel – a massive police escort having helped them there from the airport. As the players walked in, they heard music from the Kansas City Chief’s band and saw the NFL team’s cheerleaders. Even the mascot, KC Wolf, was there.Kansas City was not supposed to be a host venue for matches but they got the invitation from Fifa after Chicago said no. They are overwhelmingly delighted to have been asked. It is a city of jazz music heritage, the birthplace of Charlie Parker. It is a city of fountains, with over 200 of them, some spectacular. There are 220 parks and 29 lakes. It is a city of barbecued meats, smoked ribs and burnt ends among the specialities. It is a city of charm and friendliness, which has a love affair with the heart symbol, partly because it is in the heart of the US. “We like to say that we greet people with a smile and a wink,” said one local.Most urgently, perhaps, it is a city of sporting passion, headlined by the Chiefs, who have won three of the last seven Super Bowls. Also their baseball team, the Kansas City Royals. Football is big, too, thanks to Sporting KC and the Current, whose CPKC Stadium was the first in the world to be purpose-built exclusively for a professional women’s sports team.The World Cup Fan Fest, which has been designed by the global architects’ firm Populous and holds 25,000, was rocking on Friday night as the US thrashed Paraguay in their opening World Cup tie. Fans enter it through a 65ft high heart. England intend to thrive off the positive vibes.