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It is Bukayo Saka who ignites the move. Tight to the right, approaching halfway, the England winger turns on a sixpence and surges away from Josko Gvardiol. Saka’s work in tight spaces, his close control, is a consistent delight.
He plays a pass up and inside for Morgan Rogers and, at this point, Djed Spence is running on the outside. Rogers looks for him but Nikola Vlasic slides in to challenge and the ball breaks. Saka is alive to it, slicing inside and beating Josip Sutalo. England sense the knockout blow because Saka has options, the best being Marcus Rashford over to the left. Croatia have only Josip Stanisic back. Saka goes to Rashford, who steadies himself, jinks inside Stanisic and sidefoots low into the bottom corner.
It is a beautiful goal and it gives England an unassailable 4-2 lead in the 85th minute. Their World Cup is off to a flyer and if they have confirmation – validation, too – of a swashbuckling second-half performance, a shift in the collective mindset, there is a detail that Thomas Tuchel cannot ignore.
Ever since he came into the job, the England manager has been obsessed with the creation of a brotherhood in his squad; players who can put their main-men club personas to the side for the greater good, who, if they are asked to play 20 minutes or even only 10, will do so with everything they have. For Tuchel, the clinching goal against Croatia was the purest example of what he has wanted to see because Saka and Rogers, Spence and Rashford had all come on as substitutes.
For Rashford, in particular, it must have been a tough one to take when Tuchel said he was starting with Anthony Gordon on the left rather than him. Rashford was lively in the first half of England’s World Cup warm-up game against New Zealand; Gordon not so in the second period. And yet Tuchel was not entirely happy. When he criticised his first-half team for lacking positional discipline, it came to feel as though he had Rashford in mind. Tuchel started Gordon in the second and final warm-up match against Costa Rica, giving him 71 minutes and being rewarded with a driving performance.
Although Rashford flickered again when he came on to replace him – as did all the substitutes – Tuchel knew he had to go with Gordon against Croatia.
Here in the US there is a glamour in Major League Baseball about the role of closing pitcher; the player who leaves the bullpen towards the end to get the team home. It is not the same in football. No one wants to be a closer. And yet Tuchel knows his version of them will be crucial. Can he sell them as the heroes of his squad?
‘We needed this quality [from the substitutes] to bring it over the line,” he said. “I know they are all starters. So it is new for them. But they also know it is a period of time that is so special and they buy into this idea that we do it as a team. This is the only way.
“We are so strong from the bench and I was so impressed with everyone against Costa Rica, for example, because they pushed on the buttons and pushed on the gas and kept suffocating the opponent.”
Rashford’s finish against Croatia was a champagne moment for him; only his second goal in 13 England appearances under Tuchel. The other was the stoppage-time penalty for 5-0 against Serbia in Belgrade last September. It feels like a 50-50 decision for Tuchel between Rashford and Gordon. And with Gordon not playing well against Croatia, the debate will rage over who ought to start against Ghana on Tuesday.
It is not quite the same on the opposite wing between Saka and Noni Madueke, the dynamics skewed by Saka’s lack of full fitness. He continues to manage an achilles problem and, the way that Tuchel talked, it did not sound as though Saka would be a starting option against Ghana.
“Bukayo is ready and will get more and more ready,” he said. “I think once we go to the last game of this group [against Panama on Saturday week] he will be ready. He was strong in training on Tuesday in small spaces. It was just a matter of if the game [against Croatia] was open and was up and down.”
Like Saka, Madueke likes to cut inside on to his stronger left foot. Unlike Saka, he does not appear to trust his right as much. Remember his horrible moment against Costa Rica when he dribbled around the goalkeeper to the right of goal only to take on the finish with his left foot and hit the post? His body shape was wrong.
Madueke did go on the outside a couple of times against Croatia to good effect, most notably when he crossed low for Jude Bellingham on the half-hour; the midfielder just could not convert. Madueke’s pace is such a threat. His performance against Croatia gave Tuchel encouragement and food for thought.
“All four of the wingers are competing against each other at the highest level,” Tuchel said. “We had some 10 against 10s in training, some finishing patterns, attacking patterns, defensive patterns. Everyone is on but on in such a respectful way that we had some tough decisions to make.
“They know we will need them and the time will come when they start. The time will come when they can finish and be decisive from the bench. It is now four more weeks and in four weeks you can swallow it and digest it and buy into it. We selected the group because we were sure that they could do it and they all can.”
