Thomas Tuchel has realised England’s ultimate challenge and only Spain have the answer

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As Thomas Tuchel gathered the England players for the first meet-up since the World Cup on Wednesday, the mood was very much of moving on. There was no great discussion of what had just gone, but instead simply the need to build on it.

That has been the manager’s entire attitude since that semi-final against Argentina, with many insiders perceiving a reluctance to accept responsibility. Tuchel has only really spoken about the positives, how fans speak to him about Mexico, while insisting only an estimated 0.1 per cent of them complain.

Anecdotal evidence suggests many more than that remain aggrieved, which is also why the atmosphere in the first game back – a Nations League match coincidentally hosting world champions Spain – will tell much more. And yet, Tuchel’s demeanour is right, to a degree.

The atmosphere at Wembley on Saturday only matters insofar as what the atmosphere at Wembley will be on Sunday 9 July 2028. Tuchel knows that the 2026 World Cup will be forgotten, or even be seen as an important step, if he secures that immortal home victory at Euro 2028.

While there’s a fair argument he should have been sacked for the manner of elimination against Argentina, given what the German was appointed for, it will all be justified if he fulfils an immediate chance at complete redemption in two years.

Consequently, Spain are timely opposition for the first game back. This is not just the final that could have been, or a chance for England to show what they can do. It is a benchmark, in ways beyond just beating the Spanish.

England will probably have to do that if they are to actually win Euro 2028, and victory in any form would of course be enough. The nature of Spain’s rise, however, indicates that even thinking like that – that any win will do – may not be enough.

After years of English pragmatism, that arguably reached an extreme against Argentina, Spain have shown more may be required; an idealism; an idea.

One of the most striking things about the World Cup was how its winners seemed to “crack” international football.

At a more fractured level where the tournament was almost elevated by a dependence on individualism, Spain were the best actual team by some distance. They were arguably the only true collective. They won because they looked and felt like a club side, their long-term ideology amplified all of their qualities.

France, stacked with individual talent, couldn’t get close to them. Spain were so good that Lionel Messi barely touched the ball in the final. The one marginal regret from that victory is they didn’t give Argentina the thrashing that was probably warranted.

As far above the rest of the world as Spain were, though, the lesson of their 2008-12 team shows that isn’t indefinite. Even the grandest ideas are dependent on the human details. Teams can just go stale. Key injuries can divert a campaign.

The deeper relevance is that, as England tried almost everything in striving for just one triumph over a decade, Spain committed to one idea and have won everything. It is an idea they are deeply proud of, that they feel fully reflects their football culture. The play is an organic evolution from the small-space children’s games in numerous town forecourts.

None of this is to unnecessarily repeat all of the explanations from the World Cup as to how Spain did this, or the deeper reasons for victory.

What matters now is whether England can do something similar; not just to superficially replicate Spain’s idea but to actually develop something distinctive to English football culture.

You could almost argue that Spain’s immense influence affords another advantage. A bit like with a dominant tech company exporting key software, every federation went to them after 2010 looking to how they did it, ensuring every single academy was guided by these principles. All of that, however, was without being able to bring it together in the same way. No one, after all, is going to be able to play Spanish football like Spain.

That is partly because no one can produce those number-sixes like Spain. The Independent reported at the World Cup how the Spanish hierarchy kept some key details back from the numerous reconnaissance teams visiting them. In other words, the true secrets.

That probably makes it all the more important for everyone else to try and develop their own idea – especially England.

Whether they can is a question that traverses many of the pressures on Tuchel – right up to the use of the players.

If England are to finally win a tournament, and a home tournament at that, might it now be better to try and win it their own way? Might that bring out more?

A persistent irony from the summer is that it was Tuchel himself who identified an idea back when he first took the job. He articulated an approach based on English ideas of intensity and adventure. Modern pressing almost seems ideal for this, even if it has to be tempered for summer conditions.

This is also what the Nations League should be for: proper experimentation.

An issue for the manager is admittedly that, as with Spain, the implementation of such an idea has to go much further back. Players have to be immersed from youth level.

Some of this could be sensed in Tuchel’s post-World Cup complaints that “maybe” ball possession is not in England’s “DNA like it is in the Spanish DNA… to take the ball, control the game and the ball”.

That might well be true but a spectrum of responses are still possible. Tuchel instead went to an extreme against Argentina, arguably much further than what he has indirectly criticised Southgate for.

England ended that World Cup with fear of elimination, which only made elimination more likely.

A further concern is from something Tuchel said about a conversation before the Mexico last-16 match that so served as a blueprint for Argentina. The German mentioned “a special moment” when the Football Association hierarchy told him not to worry about the result, due to the capriciousness of knock-out football.

“We see what’s going on and we want to continue like this,” Tuchel was told.

The Independent can similarly reveal that the FA’s immediate reaction was not to really scrutinise the manner of elimination, but merely to point to the perceived achievement of the bronze model.

All of that is surprising since it’s difficult to work out what the FA could see. England only really played that one good 15-minute spell against Croatia amid hours of shapeless football.

If Tuchel’s remit was changed by that new contract before the World Cup, so it wasn’t just about that tournament, he surely needs to show he’s building to something bigger than just getting results.

Except, can that really be said?

It’s why a fair question to Tuchel’s meeting might well be “build on what?”

The question is made all the sharper by the suggestions that Tuchel’s authority over the squad has been undermined by the nature of the Argentina elimination.

If Spain start to assert their idea at Wembley, this could get ugly.

It’s also that this one match might be just as likely to go another way. England will feel they have a point to prove, right up to the manager. That might afford an edge, at the same time as Spain can maybe be caught cold.

Their last World Cup win, in 2010, was quickly followed by four-goal friendly defeats to both Argentina and Portugal.

That in itself should provide a reminder that none of this will actually matter until that first knock-out game against a big team at Euro 2028. Saturday’s opposition simply prove you have a far better chance of winning it if you’re playing to an idea in everything else.