KANSAS CITY — The dartboard is still there, players taking it in turns to take down Peter Crouch with bonhomie or even a well-placed arrow.
The content boom that became such a crowd-pleaser during Gareth Southgate’s great English makeover is an easy icebreaker for media sessions, lightening the mood and loosening tongues.
The return to Kansas City post-Mexico was supposed to be about decompressing before rising again in Miami, where Norway await in Saturday’s quarter-final.
While there has been some of that, Morgan Rogers explaining the benefits of England’s home from home in the American Midwest to a Norwegian journalist tasked with a dispatch from inside the enemy camp, there is also a low thrum of electricity crackling about the squad, a sense that some cosmic force is driving England towards the ultimate finale.
As an observer of the Southgate years, you never quite got the feeling the team believed the message.
Southgate’s instinct for inclusion built genuine bonds but never quite the commensurate belief that all champions exude.
If Thomas Tuchel has achieved one step with this team it is in shedding the imposter syndrome that ultimately stalled Southgate’s vehicle, the feeling that against the very best there was something deficient in the English character that condemned them to fail.
Rogers points enthusiastically to the game-changing output of Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane, the arrival bang on cue of the big dogs in England’s time of need.
This is not only expected but anticipated, and not just by the players.
The feeling of eminence is shared by the fans, which is, according to Rogers, a mutuality they have not really experienced before.
“We’ve shown to the world that we can win in different ways in different atmospheres, and environments,” he said.
“I think it gives us a lot of confidence, but I think gives the fans back home and everyone that extra bit of belief that no matter how the game’s going, we’ll find a way and we’ve got the ability to find a way.”
This does not come across as arrogance or bombast. It is a view genuinely held, promoted by a coach whose belief in them is absolute.
Yet for all the positivity and gratification associated with the Azteca rising, England have made it to the quarters without dominating in the manner of France or Spain.
This, you feel, is the elusive quality England have lacked, the ability to control a game from front to back, to put all the elements together in a cohesive way that leaves none in doubt about their calibre.
It may be that Bellingham, Kane and Declan Rice are enough of a guarantee.
It would be nice, however, were England to win the hearts of the neutrals as well as their own followers.
We have gleaned from the vanquished coaches of DR Congo and Mexico in the knockout rounds the esteem in which England’s finest are held.
Their technical appreciation of Bellingham and Kane speaks of the growing power of England to intimidate and threaten by reputation alone.
That is the ultimate measure of any team’s status, the degree to which the opponent falters in their presence.
England are on the point of becoming the team they want to be, of recognising their own power and influence in a way we have not seen since 1966.
Mexico was a watershed for many, exorcising the Hand of God in the Azteca.
That is only the start of the process.
Taking down Argentina and Lionel Messi, in many ways the son of Diego Maradona (God), in the semis, then emulating the boys of 66 in the final would return England to the vanguard of the game.
The small matter of Erling Haaland and the Norse oarsmen comes first.
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England, according to Rogers, are ready.
“That was the message today with our first training session back, that we go for it again, we go and get more, we can get better,” he added.
“That’s the exciting part about being a footballer. It’s never over. Never the end.”
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