Wembley in November is a dull, gristly place, 74,000 people here more out of duty than desire, but a few glistening, unimpeachable moments still pierce the rain-flecked stupor. Bukayo Saka flicks and flitters down the right wing, then whips a deft volley across goal with a casual brilliance. Jude Bellingham returns and immediately starts doing superhero stuff, box-crashing and retrieving cats from burning buildings. Fresh from the bench, Eberechi Eze gambols round Andrija Živković, before flicking a Phil Foden through ball first-time as though shepherded by fate.
At times it needs reiterating that this is perhaps the most fun collection of English footballers ever. But it appears a uniquely miserable quirk of the English psyche to frame having too many good players as not a privilege but a chore, a source of endless hand-wringing and headaching. Adam Wharton has played 33 senior minutes, including five against Serbia. Eze has started three senior internationals, against Bosnia, Senegal and Andorra. Cole Palmer has still played only 65 minutes under Thomas Tuchel, against Andorra in Barcelona, his fourth England start. Trent Alexander-Arnold and Jack Grealish have been exiled entirely. These are, ultimately, good problems to have. As with so much of the current conversation around England, they are not really problems at all.
Many would seemingly be happier if we implemented a sort of talent austerity, absolutely no more than one outlandishly gifted player in any position, the limited supply of joy sensibly rationed. Palmer or Foden or Eze ending their careers having never really established their international place would not be a sign of some endemic problem, rather of extraordinary fortune.
But still, Morgan Rogers has been a nice point well made, a good learning experience for all involved, but it is now time for the big boys to compete. Bellingham gets that Tuchel is not afraid to drop him against Latvia, but Rogers is the actual pawn, a bargaining chip in a game bigger than him. The overwhelming shriek when Bellingham emerged from the bench against Serbia was the loudest of the night, a reminder that suggestions he is not overly likeable are irrelevant when he is this loved.
Tuchel’s point probably would have been more effective had Palmer been available in recent camps, the only comparable talent to Bellingham, more suited to playing behind Kane and better at basically everything than his childhood friend Rogers.
But, beyond this, there is little doubt Tuchel is doing exactly what he was hired to. The team look better than they did a year ago. There is a clear plan and direction. Vibes are good. The football looks good. His assistant Anthony Barry even recently told the collected media that “personally I hate the term ‘international break’. This is the pinnacle of football,” a lovely idea if untrue.
Tuchel has been suitably sincere but firm in respecting the quirks of the English media machine, something he experienced at Chelsea but which reaches a new tier of rabid oddness when it comes to the national men’s team. He has treated these qualifying matches with the requisite seriousness, and is happy to play the part.
And so Foden as a false nine cannot just be an experiment, a whim, someone has to ask Tuchel whether he might actually usurp Kane in big matches, and he cannot dismiss them out of hand. Even the discourse around Kane is downright odd, an obsession with who might replace one of the most reliably excellent English footballers ever, currently on course to break the Bundesliga scoring record, having missed just four league matches due to minor injuries since May 2021.
But these frivolous thought experiments still reveal something about where England are as a team. Getting ahead of yourself has only ever ended badly before, so English football remains trapped between extremes of optimism and pessimism to a point of self-harm, an irrepressible hope most people do everything imaginable to repress. But this cynicism is increasingly as unhelpful as it is unnecessary.
Here is your best striker ever, two of your best attacking midfielders ever, your best wingers of the modern era, quite possibly the two best right backs in the world, Declan Rice, John Stones, Marcus Rashford. You have won every qualifying match to nil under a remarkably qualified, gifted, interesting coach. Every eventuality is clearly being considered for next summer, from navigating extreme heat to supershoes.
If England avoid conceding in Tirana today, they will become the first team ever to navigate a European or World Cup qualification group of five teams or more without conceding. Jordan Pickford has not conceded in an international match since October 2024, the first England goalkeeper to keep clean sheets in nine consecutive competitive games. England are second favourites to win the World Cup in most markets, level with France and trailing only Spain.
These are good days, with every indicator suggesting there are more to come. Of course, everything is in aid of the World Cup, the ultimate aim and endpoint. But we can worry about that then. For now, just enjoy it.
Photograph by Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images