Key events
“He’s called Pickers now?” sniffs Andrew Goudie. “What’s his nickname, ‘Cherry’?”
I thought it was Pickers?
James Trafford embraces Rodri, his old Manchester City team-mate, in the tunnel. This is the biggest night of his burgeoning career.
Thomas Tuchel’s pre-match thoughts
[On Spain] They’re the European champions, they’re the world champions. They’re the team to beat, which is super hard. We have some questions to answer, but we want to be the first team to find answers to these questions.
[On the selection of James Trafford] He will play two consecutive matches, then Pickers gets the other two matches. It was amazing to see how Jordan Pickford reacted. We told him we want to see Trafford at this kind of level and see what’s behind Pickers. We know what Pickers can give us and he did nothing wrong.
“Can I just set Krishnamoorthy V‘s mind to rest,” begins Matt Dony. “Rob is both unfortunate and masochistic. Nothing else explains a decades-long commitment to the MBM!”
The FA will pay tribute to Kevin Keegan, a romantic workaholic like no other, before tonight’s game. He remains the only Englishman to win the Ballon d’Or twice, an extraordinary achievement for which he never received enough credit.
Andrew Beasley
England are about to face the hardest challenge in international football, maybe at any level of the game. They are going to try to score against Spain. Spain conceded one goal in eight games on the way to winning the World Cup while allowing their opponents 2.37 expected goals, a mere 0.30 per 90 minutes played.
Thomas Tuchel has said he hoped his side “became for 10 minutes more like Spain” to comfortably dominate possession when the heat was on. A fine aspiration for those situations, but it is not an approach that will help England unlock the Spain backline. The pass masters cannot be toppled that way. The solution may lie elsewhere within the same Tuchel press conference.
Tuchel spoke of how English fans and players prefer chaos. “There is no heritage of: ‘Oh, let’s control around the middle line. Let’s do a deep buildup and then bring them out’,” he said. “It’s just like: ‘Come on. Let’s kick the ball into the opponent’s box and fight with them’.”
And this is how England can beat Spain. Granted, it requires a little more nuance than Tuchel’s simple summation. But not much. The two defeats Spain have suffered in the Luis de la Fuente era help prove the point. Both occurred in the UK.
Sid Lowe
Like the kid he is, Lamine Yamal just wanted to keep playing. This wasn’t Plaça Joan XXIII, wasn’t El Parque de Rocafonda either; it wasn’t the Mataró neighbourhood where it all began, but it might have been. “We’re in a World Cup final and I wanted to carry on,” he says, and there’s the smile again, the braces. Really? “Yes”. No nerves? “No. I never thought: ‘Just blow the whistle’. I was enjoying it.” No fear, just fun: 19 July, New Jersey and he knew: this 19-year-old who had happily been asleep on the bus to the biggest match of his life.
And now he sits in a first-floor office in Las Rozas, surrounded by tactics boards and stats sheets. There’s a Spain keyring hanging from the door and a second star on his shirt. In the corridor, crates loaded for London. Son of Mounir and Sheila, named after the family friends who helped them, “touched by God’s wand” in the words of the coach whose office is next door, there’s something about Lamine Yamal. He turned 17 the day before the final of Euro 2024, a schoolboy sitting exams, and 19 the day before the semi-final of the World Cup. Asked what he wanted, he said a trip to New York, so there he was, about to be a champion again.
The way Lamine Yamal tells it, Spain knew they were world champions before they had scored, in the moment Enzo Fernández was sent off. It was the third minute of second-half stoppage time, still 0-0, but now, he says: “We knew it was impossible they would score, and with the ball against 10, very difficult for us not to.” The surprise was that they hadn’t already, but on 106 minutes the ball came to his feet. He had been thinking about this moment for some time.
“Rob,” begins Alan Baverstock. “Sid Lowe writes b e a u t i f u l l y.”
Damn straight. All his stuff is great but I think his interviews are remarkable, both the quotes he elicits and the way he writes them up. I’d urge y’all to read the Lamine Yamal interview I’m about to post.
Jacob Steinberg
Anthony Gordon has sided with Thomas Tuchel’s assertion that controlling games through possession is not part of English football’s DNA. Although Gordon revealed surprise at being substituted when England were 1-0 up in their World Cup semi-final against Argentina, the winger refused to blame the defeat on Tuchel’s decisions and argued that wider cultural issues influenced the side’s collapse.
England’s perennial struggle to keep the ball when under pressure flared when a place in the final was within touching distance in July, allowing Argentina to fight back and go through with two late goals. The pain has not gone away and there has been intense scrutiny of Tuchel’s role in Atlanta. The head coach’s tactical choices were criticised and he faced a backlash after saying “ball possession” was not in his team’s DNA.
But Gordon, who thinks he will always be scarred by losing against Argentina, sided with Tuchel’s observations about England’s style as he looked towards the Nations League game against Spain on Saturday. The 25-year-old admitted the side had an ingrained inability to control games but argued they should stop trying to copy other nations.
Gordon has gained an insight into the Spanish understanding of how to use the ball since his move to Barcelona. His view is that England should lean more into their physical strengths.
“Hello Rob,” writes Krishnamoorthy V. “Were you assigned this game or did you opt for it? This important piece of information would let me decide if you are merely unfortunate or a steadfast masochist.”
Opt for it indeed. The Man giveth, and The Man taketh away. On the plus side, I get tomorrow off and we all know Sunday night is where the real excitement lies.
Jacob Steinberg
Thomas Tuchel has thrown Cole Palmer’s England future into major doubt by questioning whether the Chelsea attacker wants to be part of his squad.
England’s head coach did not hold back on Palmer’s latest withdrawal from international duty, warning that the 24-year-old has missed too many opportunities to play for his country. Palmer has only 14 caps and his decision not to join up with the squad this week, because of a minor muscular injury, caused disappointment given he was left out of Tuchel’s World Cup squad after struggling with form and fitness last season.
Tuchel has put a lot of store in team spirit and is clear about wanting commitment. The German has rarely been able to work with Palmer, who had earned a high-profile recall after making a strong start to the campaign, and did not go down the diplomatic route when it was suggested the former Manchester City player does not seem desperate to play for England. “Hard to argue against what you’re saying,” Tuchel said.
The line came with a warning for Palmer. “He misses too many camps,” Tuchel said. “That’s the overall headline. We have a lot of invitations and he couldn’t make this one. It is what it is. I am not ready to focus on players who are not here. The players that are here have my full attention.
Sid Lowe
“I’m going to tell you a story,” Luis de la Fuente said. “As soon as the game finished on 19 July, before anyone had cooled down at all, just two or three minutes after the final, one of the players – and you’ll have to forgive me for not telling you which one, but it was one of those who has been with us for the longest time – came up to me and said: ‘Mister, now what? What’s left to win?’ And I said: ‘Bloody hell, the game against England at Wembley on 26 September.’”
It was a Friday afternoon at Las Rozas and Spain’s coach had just named his first squad since that day in New Jersey. It was a familiar one, full of history makers. Of the 26 from the World Cup, only four had been left out and there was an explanation for each: Marcos Llorente has announced his international retirement; Joan García is injured; Borja Iglesias, who always felt the likeliest to leave first, is not fully fit; and Gavi is suspended for Wembley, although he could have faced Croatia and Czechia.
Team news: Trafford preferred to Pickford
Leeds goalkeeper James Trafford starts ahead of Jordan Pickford, a selection that few people saw coming. Pickford is among the subs, so this might be the end of his long spell as England’s undisputed No1. Myles Lewis-Skelly covers for Declan Rice in midfield and Jarell Quansah is preferred to Trent Alexander-Arnold at right-back.
Ferran Torres and Nico Williams, the substitutes who combined for Spain’s World Cup-winning goal against Argentina, start ahead of Alex Baena and Mikel Oyarzabal. The only other change from that game is in defence, where Eric Garcia replaces the injured Pedro Porro at right-back.
England (4-2-3-1) Trafford; Quansah, Konsa, Guehi, O’Reilly; Anderson, Lewis-Skelly; Saka, Bellingham, Gordon; Kane.
Subs: Pickford, Steele, Alexander-Arnold, Scott, Chalobah, Hall, Branthwaite, Rogers, Garner, Calvert-Lewin, Gibbs-White, Eze.
Spain (4-2-3-1) Simon; Garcia, Cubarsi, Laporte, Cucurella; Rodri, Ruiz; Yamal, Olmo, Williams; Torres.
Subs: Raya, Martinez, Huijsen, Grimaldo, Merino, Lopez, Pino, Pubill, Baena, Zubimendi, Pedri, Oyarzabal.
Referee Davide Massa (Italy)
David Hytner
Thomas Tuchel has pictured the scene. It comes after the final whistle has blown on England’s Nations League opener against Spain on Saturday night, the first post-World Cup fixture for both teams, and it has Wembley swaying to the strains of Wonderwall. It is a moment of communion, a reconnection with the Oasis classic that was the soundtrack to England’s World Cup campaign, which delivered so much only to end in such disappointment.
“Do I think it will happen tomorrow?” Tuchel said, when asked if Wonderwall would play again afterwards. “I think it will happen if we win.”
There are a couple of counterpoints. The visit of Spain is certainly a glamour fixture and Wembley is sold out in anticipation, but it is not a World Cup knockout tie. The emotion cannot pulse to the same levels. Furthermore, Tuchel has first-hand experience of the vagaries of the Wembley crowd; its hard-to-please restlessness.
Preamble
We interupt the Manchester City news cycle to bring you live coverage of a football match: England v Spain in the Nations League, aka the World Cup final that wasn’t.
U over it yet, hun? It’s been 73 days since England’s grisly collapse against Argentina, and it’s not getting any better with age. But there’s always a next time in football, and another home European Championship should give England a decent shot in glory.
The road to Euro 2028 begins with four Nations League games in 11 days: Spain (H), Czechia (A), Croatia (A), Czechia (H). The matches against the C-teams are likely to determine whether England qualify for the quarter-finals. In different circumstances, tonight’s game would be a free hit. But the manner of – and reaction to – the Argentina defeat invalidates all that.
In the parlance of our times, Thomas Tuchel and England need to restore public trust. Beating the world champions, who haven’t lost since March 2024, would be a good way to start.
The alternative is less appealing, especially in these febrile times. Never mind the news cycle: if England are hammered tonight, it could be the start of a doom cycle.
Kick off 7.45pm.
