Bukayo Saka, the best attacking player for the Premier League champions. Morgan Rogers, an elite No 10 who some believed should start over Jude Bellingham. Marcus Rashford, somehow the forgotten man of England’s attack over the last two years who is the second highest goalscorer in this squad.
Those were the three players introduced by Thomas Tuchel after 72 minutes. Within 15 minutes, two had combined majestically to kill the contest and fire up England’s World Cup campaign. It’s go time – and it might just be piping hot fun.
Tuchel has always implied that he does not wish to throw the baby out with the bathwater kept warm by his predecessor. Gareth Southgate was big on the notion of “starters and finishers”. So is the new guy.
It’s one of those management speak phrases that provides a coach with an easy escape from perilous press conference questioning. Nobody is dropped to the bench because there is no hierarchy. I love them all equally. We’re all just starters and finishers, man.
It’s also entirely appropriate. The conditions of this World Cup are unique: the heat, the travel, the workload on players in the domestic season that never seems to relent. The best starting XI may well win this World Cup, but I reckon the deepest squad has the better chance.
England don’t have the deepest squad in every position. It would take chest-beating patriotism to suggest so. The full-back areas are light, particularly after Tino Livramento’s withdrawal. Central midfield has other options than Declan Rice and Elliot Anderson, but I’m not sure any of them quite do what those two manage in combination. Harry Kane is as irreplaceable as crown jewels.
But I haven’t seen any team in this World Cup so far have as devastating impact in the final third through their use of substitutes than England. Saka carried the ball like a man determined to prove that his fitness should not cause a national wobble. Rashford took his goal impeccably well, faking a shot to sit a defender down and open up the angle.
Anthony Gordon was anonymous and Noni Madueke bright and mercifully intent upon taking on his man rather than stopping. But Tuchel is adamant that however the starting wingers perform, they have attributes that will tire the minds and legs of full-backs and create time and space for those who replace them. In Dallas, that confidence was vindicated.
In the case of Saka, amazing how a frown can be turned upside down. The bad news, Bukayo, is that you might not be able to play for 90 or 120 minutes in this tournament – boo, hiss, we’re done for. The good news: I don’t think there is another England player in my lifetime who could potentially make me giggle more when given 20 minutes against a tired left-back.
What’s most fascinating – and bodes so well for England – is how this can become so self-fulfilling when it starts positively. The two starting wingers can put everything in physically knowing the next cabs off the rank will perform. Bellingham can do his superman act because Rogers is there to step in when required. A competition for places grows but so does a sense of shared ownership. First comes one wave, then another.
The environment feels different too. England were more defensively uncertain in the first half in Dallas than at any point during Gareth Southgate’s eight years of major tournament management; there is a balance to be identified and exploited. Jordan Pickford seemed unsettled with the new look. Simple straight balls threatened both central defenders.
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Nor is this criticism, merely observation. But I don’t think it’s controversial to conclude that we wouldn’t have seen a Southgate team with four players surging forward on a counter attack after 85 minutes with a one-goal lead. And if this is England’s strength, it must be exploited.
The future is now. The manager has changed. The mood will shift with it, lurching either to glory or German fraudulence; that is how life works now. England appointed the all-or-nothing manager and the next five weeks will be the whole of his truth. It’s going to take some getting used to.
But if one knock-on effect of this brave new world is two replacement wingers and a No 10 hurtling forward on a sweeping counter attack to render any late nerves redundant, I think we’re all on board. The reason that some of your favourite attacking players were left out of England’s squad is because we have an embarrassment of riches. So let’s cash them all in.
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