We\u2019re on our way. We are Tom\u2019s 26. This time, more than any other time, this time. We\u2019re going to find a way. Find a way to get it right. This time. Well, maybe. Next time is also good. And the time after that. You don\u2019t like this time? We have other times. Hey, Spain are pretty good right now aren\u2019t they.<\/p>\n
There is an entire multilayered history of Englishness in the basic tone and mood of English World Cup<\/a> excitement. It is easy to forget that when the 1982 squad, AKA Ron\u2019s 22, released the song This Time, a tortured paean to finally erasing their own ancestral agony, England had actually won the World Cup only 16 years earlier.<\/p>\n This was like Spain winning it in 2010 and then doing a song next year saying, oh, finally, finally we\u2019re going to assuage our endless generational failure. To be fair, Ron\u2019s 22 did a brilliantly authentic job of it, faces set with funereal dignity, belting out their V\u2011necked Viking death hymn. But then, the English are born to feel this. It\u2019s the\u00a0safe space: wounded lions, comfort in longing, failure as epic drama, thwarted greatness as a form of national identity.<\/p>\n Through corned beef fumes on the quays of Mexico City, to rage at Gareth Southgate for providing actual, tangible hope, because hope is the one thing they\u2019ll never forgive you for, this has been the tone. It has also been the most beautiful part of England<\/a> football, more deeply cherished than actually doing well in 1990, or just accepting that maybe we\u2019re not very good and need to work out a way to coach and play.<\/p>\n It is important to state all this\u00a0again now England have qualified with great efficiency<\/a> for the tournament next year in the US,\u00a0Mexico and Canada. If only because it makes Thomas Tuchel\u2019s job description \u2013 win the World Cup\u00a0or fail \u2013 seem less like a doomed mission and more a simple truth. Let\u2019s face it, this has been the\u00a0case for every England manager, even when success has been a much more distant prospect. And right now, pragmatically, logically, England have their best chance of winning a World Cup since 1970.<\/p>\n Thomas Tuchel is trying to bring a sense of clarity to England\u2019s preparations. Photograph: Andrew Boyers\/Action Images\/Reuters<\/p>\n This is not just a patriotic take. For the first time England are led by someone who has both won the Champions League and managed in the domestic top tier. The players are good. They seem unencumbered by the task. It doesn\u2019t really matter if Tuchel\u2019s England haven\u2019t faced any top teams yet. These players come up against elite opponents every week in a global league. We know what Kevin De Bruyne looks like. It\u2019s still hard. But it\u2019s not scary any more.<\/p>\n Forget the heat chat too, which\u00a0belongs to a previous era of don\u2019t drink the water and the food is all muck. To suggest the pressing Tuchel employs is possible only in cold weather is to misunderstand what pressing is, to see it as running constantly as opposed to triggers, controlled traps and keeping the ball in between.<\/p>\n Spain, Germany and Deschamps\u2011era France have taken up four of the past eight World Cup final spots, all European teams that play a pressing game. Tuchel\u2019s tactics speak to the dominant culture, to the way Chelsea pressed\u00a0Paris Saint-Germain into the turf<\/a> in New Jersey in July.<\/p>\n This is also not an overreaction to results in qualifying. All of the other teams in Group K were terrible. But England still looked hungry, serious and happy to be there. Outside of one end-of-term defeat<\/a> by Senegal the record over the past year reads played nine and won nine, with nine clean sheets. No one will fancy facing this England team right now.<\/p>\n Tuchel would do well to emulate Didier Deschamps\u2019 France team. Photograph: Thibault Camus\/AP<\/p>\n It is important to remember that Tuchel is the key to this. International football is a throwback in many ways. We are accustomed to the idea of managers having some kind of \u201cphilosophy\u201d. Success is a process: banana bread, bald men with iPads, adherence to the famed Benelux school of the blitz-rage counter-swarm.<\/p>\n In international football the manager is just as important, but\u00a0leadership is the opposite thing. It\u2019s\u00a0about clarity, about taking things away more than adding them. Southgate got this, but was still in love with the quest, still talked about fighter pilots a lot, still saw his role as crawling, Shawshank-style, through an eight\u2011year tunnel of shit.<\/p>\n Tuchel seemed puzzled by this at first. Here is a man whose life has been the overthinking of football, asked now to contemplate clarity, simple stuff, underthinking. He has, though, worked it out in real time, aided by the hugely underrated virtue of not actually seeming to want the job that much.<\/p>\n Their tactics are simple: defend as a unit, attack at speed. Even better, not since Fabio Capello have England had a manager so clear the job will not define him. Where Capello also had the key demerits of being tactically outmoded and not speaking English, which was in effect like being managed by a very angry tailor\u2019s mannequin, Tuchel has a bracing fearlessness, the sense that this is simply an interesting project, unafraid to dish it out to fans<\/a>, players, hacks, his predecessor.<\/p>\n It is at this point the omission of star players raises its head, a point of strength, but also something that needs to be managed and understood. As long ago as 1982 the video for This Time was dominated by closeups of Kevin Keegan\u2019s hammy, sombre face, the unfit star who would ultimately prove just a distraction, and separately of Noel Edmonds, perfectly primped and hair-sprayed, with that familiar celebrity helicopter gunship salesman energy<\/a>.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Football Daily<\/p>\n Kick off your evenings with the Guardian’s take on the world of football<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n England\u2019s 1982 World Cup song This Time is still relevant as England retain a sense of being wounded lions. Photograph: BBC Pictures Archives<\/p>\n This has always been an English vice. Losing the run of yourself when confronted with actual talent, jamming every famous face into the team, convinced your star players are magic buttons, that to be English and good is to make the world kneel before you, to carry the Ark of the Covenant into battle.<\/p>\n This is where Tuchel\u2019s approach is both interesting and also an act of pragmatism. It may feel exhilarating to omit the semi\u2011fit fancy boys, Jude, Phil, Jack, Trent, to embrace this as an act of\u00a0performative hair shirt-ism. We are the humblest. We are exceptionally unexceptional.<\/p>\n