England’s Nations League match with Greece in Athens tonight has been described as a ‘dead rubber’. Far from it. This is a must-win game that has more riding on it than being promoted back into the top tier of European countries – where England should be anyway.
If England finish second in their group, behind Greece, it would see them have to play two high-pressure play-off games in March. So much for the new head coach Thomas Tuchel starting on January 1 and concentrating solely on winning the next World Cup. That 18-month ‘clean slate plan’ to just focus on the World Cup would go right out of the window.
If England do not win in Athens it would also shift the attention sharply onto the flawed decision to allow Tuchel to delay taking over immediately and to forfeit this camp.
The logic behind that has been presented – including Tuchel’s assistant Anthony Barry not being able to join until the new year as he frees himself from his contract with Portugal – but does not make sense.
It also leaves Tuchel open to the accusation that he simply did not fancy a challenging match away to Greece as his first as England head coach given he would have had so little preparation time. The decimated squad met up on Monday and plays on Thursday.
This is not just media-bleating. Harry Kane has voiced his frustration at the player withdrawals, suggesting some have been taking “advantage” of Tuchel not yet having taken the reins from interim England manager Lee Carsley. And Kane is the England captain. This is damaging.
Time is of the essence and with that, by the way, Tuchel would be well advised to be in attendance, in person, at Brentford’s home game against Arsenal which is the sole Premier League fixture on New Year’s Day.
England need to get on with it so allowing Gareth Southgate’s successor, apparently signed up on October 8, to delay simply does not make sense. He was out-of-work, he was available and there was nothing in his departure from Bayern Munich to prevent him. Instead we have a near three-month delay.
So England will wait for the World Cup draw on December 13 and then have to work out: what next. Following that draw it is usually the role of the manager to talk about the countries England will face. But presumably, Tuchel, who will not start for another couple of weeks, will not do that. And neither will Carsley who is returning to his head coach role with the Under-21s. A minor detail but optically not great.
The draw, held virtually in Switzerland because of Fifa’s apparently growing anathema to exposing itself to the accountability of holding press conferences (although it will say it is because of the logistics), could pit England in a group of four or group of five.
If England are in a Nations League play-off against another runner-up country (only the group winners are automatically promoted) they will pray they are in a group of four. This means they only have six qualifiers to fit in rather than eight in 2025.
If that is the case then the June international window (2-10) will be used for prestige friendlies with England hoping to travel to the east coast of the United States for a pair of fixtures to help in the preparations for the World Cup. The expectation is they will play Mauricio Pochettino’s US team and Mexico (another of the World Cup hosts along with Canada).
Club World Cup conundrum for Tuchel
Quite what kind of squad Tuchel will be able to take is a moot point. If, for example, Manchester City reach the Champions League final then that is on May 31 in Munich. Can City’s England contingent of John Stones, Phil Foden, Jack Grealish, Kyle Walker and Rico Lewis be expected t play for England and then take part in the Club World Cup in the US which starts on June 15 and, potentially for them, ends with the final of July 13?
Fifa has already warned participating clubs, with England’s other representative being Chelsea who have Cole Palmer, Noni Madueke, Levi Colwill and Reece James, that the strongest available squads must be selected. Otherwise clubs will be heavily fined. We also already know that City and Chelsea intend to take the tournament seriously.
It gets even more complicated. If England are in a five-nation group the June friendlies may be lost and replaced by key qualifiers which makes the selection headache yet more problematic as Tuchel will want his strongest team and the rules allow him to insist upon this.
Alternatively he might head into a condensed World Cup qualifying campaign having gone through a Nations League play-off in March – and winning that is vital with seeding for the next Euros (for which Uefa have yet to decide whether host nations automatically qualify) – and two friendlies with a hugely depleted squad.
The qualifiers would then be spread over two games in September (1-9), two in October (6-14) and two in November (10-18). If England do not win their Nations League group or get through the play-offs they also lose the right to the safety net of a World Cup play-off should they fail to qualify for the tournament through the group.
The permutations appear endless. Plotting a path is tricky. For example, Fifa will find it difficult to publish a definitive list of fixtures soon after the December draw because of the possibility of country clashes and the Nations League play-offs affecting the schedule.
But there is an ideal scenario: England win the Nations League group and then get drawn in a four-nation qualification group for the World Cup. That means they are likely to have two friendlies in March and two more in June before the campaign begins in September. It would give Tuchel ample time to prepare the team the way he wants to, to experiment if he wants to and to be ready for the competitive fixtures.
It therefore makes it all the more imperative for England to beat Greece and also, on Sunday, the Republic of Ireland. But, again, it raises the question as to why the FA have allowed a coach, in Carsley, who they have evidently concluded is not the best man for the job to take charge of those games. If Tuchel is the one they believe can win England the World Cup then he should have been asked to salvage this Nations League campaign. Because that also matters.
