Make Andorra suffer? It was the poor fans who had it worst of all

The self-appointed buzzword of Thomas Tuchel’s England regime has been “suffering”: suffering in pursuit of glory, suffering to make ­opponents suffer more and, in a muggy Barcelona, making fans suffer the most.

Suffering in a match like this, against a team like this, is really hard. Andorra has a similar ­population to Gosport, although it has never produced a player of Matt Ritchie’s obstinate class. Their men’s team are ranked 173rd in the world and have won one of their last 26 games. Which titans of the sport did they topple? San Marino, 2-0 last October.

You have to suffer for that suffering. But by Jove, England managed it, as they so often do. They did it with a lot of performative pointing to get back in position, repeated screams of faux motivation and plenty of whingeing that the Andorrans were being mean to them. You could almost see the Ghost of Gareth on the sideline.

This was an afternoon of dire “Sweet Caroline” remixes and sunshine, of St George’s crosses reading “Get some Stoke City in ya”, a kind offer I ­respectfully declined. It was also an afternoon of truly terrible football, of Dan Burn, Reece James and Jordan Henderson passing in pretty triangles near the halfway line. Harry Kane’s ugly poke was an ­undeserved release.

Tuchel’s pre-World Cup ­obsession is the North American summer heat, which could top 40C. Earlier this week players were made to cycle at high intensity in heated tents for 45 ­minutes having swallowed ­dissolvable digital tablets which recorded their internal response to the conditions. The feedback is meant to help understanding of how players respond to extreme heat and humidity and knowing how to ­better fuel and protect them. Tuchel then spoke about the need to ­“suffocate” Andorra, his desire for “pace, power and strength” and England’s “very offensive mindset” for this match.

Modus operandi: suffering. Execution: insufferable.

The balance between ­necessary conditioning and preparation and unnecessary exhaustion is ­impossibly fine here. The most ­common injury trigger in the ­modern game is not workload alone, but the intensity of that work. Tottenham and Bournemouth both had injury crises last season, but also play the most intense pressing football.

This is no coincidence. According to the Financial Times, sprints per game in the Premier League have risen 30 per cent in the last decade. English ­football has developed to a ­physical level most human bodies cannot maintain. International play ­matching that tempo is as unhelpful as it is unrealistic.

To a certain extent, Tuchel ­understands this. “The majority of our players play in the toughest league in the world and they are used to a kind of rhythm that is unique,” he said on Friday.“It can be that at some point we need to adjust our style when it comes to tournament football, knockout football. Can you really play the same game in 40C heat and humidity that you play in 20C in an evening match? These are some questions and I don’t have all the answers.”

His quest to prepare for the ­inevitable suffering of a major ­tournament is largely sensible. He only has a few sporadic matches with these players to prepare. The ­schedule is beyond his control. He has been hired for one purpose and has been clear he is not here to build a culture.

But these players already understand suffering intimately. They look utterly debilitated. Reece James, seemingly one of the pillars of Tuchel’s extremely quiet revolution, is now made of candy floss and pain. Harry Kane aged a decade in a month at Euro 2024, and another ­decade yesterday afternoon. The likes of John Stones, Luke Shaw or Raheem Sterling will likely never recover.

Wouldn’t these camps be ­better used alleviating that? Many play at a level so intense it is gradually ­tearing them limb from limb, and more ­crucially something seems faintly ­broken among this group. Henderson’s jocular energy is not changing that. The late Southgate era was painful, dull, weird, and ­seemingly lingering.

So do the unity stuff; inflatable ­unicorns and icebreakers. Focus on vibes. Enjoy a week gratis at the best golf resort in Spain. Eat good food and drink good wine. Do not, under any circumstances, do 45 minutes of high intensity cycling in an insulated tent. That’s a future problem.

Bizarrely, this is probably the ­closest to World Cup conditions England will encounter over the next year. Even with a coastal breeze, it was 26C and humid enough to make Prince Andrew sweat, against a ­physical and dedicated low block.

We learned very little. Everyone involved suffered. But why?

Photograph by Eddie Keogh/FA via Getty Images