The moment of the night in Athens came on 82 minutes, with England’s young team romping about the place like cosseted schoolboys, all jinky little twirls and prim one-touch keep-ball. On the right wing Morgan Gibbs-White, once of Lee Carsley’s under-21s, flicked the ball inside towards the white shirts in the centre. The closest of them was Curtis Jones, also once of Lee Carsley’s under-21s, who did something entirely in keeping with his almost laughably unhurried performance all night, letting the ball run past him, then producing a perfectly pinged instep drag-flick into the far corner.
It made the score 3-0, the final significant act of England’s penultimate outing under an interim manager who has, it turns out, something of the avenger about him, the quiet revolutionary, a Martin Luther in overly tight lycra tracksuit bottoms.
With the benefit of a decent run now, it really is a shame Carsley isn’t getting this job. He’s frisky. He’s quietly punkish. He makes weird, ballsy calls. Yes, the Wembley game against Greece was a total disaster, a man trying to make an omelette out of Smarties, marshmallows, Tic-Tacs and a sprinkle of icing sugar. But looking back, it came from a good place. Unleash, Lee. Just maybe don’t unleash quite so much.
Is it too late? Do we need to call Thomas and have a really long chat? Ninety per cent of life is turning up. Lee Carsley turns up. Lee Carsley is, it turns out, unafraid.
And whatever his arc from here this was Carsley redux. This was Lee’s game. England were in control for almost the whole night against a mediocre Greece. Best of all, when they were good they were good in a very Carsley way.
Over 90 minutes they fielded seven players with experience of the Carsley age group processor. They all looked well briefed, sure of their roles, a Carsley army of upright, technically sound ball-players who like to have the ball and pass to each other.
This is not to say England looked like World Cup winners, or that Carsley is some kind of emergent 50-something tyro genius. It was just an England team that felt good, looked like it recognised itself, that had a shared vibe. And for all the agony and the war, the betrayal of Albion stuff that must naturally follow, this does seem to be the point of representative football.
England’s interim manager has had a bruising time, has had to suck it down and smile and talk in weird, hedged sentences. But Carsley has clearly decided to go out being Carsley. He did so by doing something that was beyond Gareth Southgate.
This was of course Carsley’s Gambit: the Kane mutiny. Harry Kane has never been dropped before. Why not? Has he never played badly? Has the team never needed a different kind of thrust? The thing is, star players don’t get dropped in English sport. They hang on, grandly, growing slower and sadder. There are notions of status, heft, barrack room lines.
It is, of course, senseless. To pick Ollie Watkins ahead of Kane is not to say Ollie Watkins is better than Harry Kane. It is simply a tactical change, a different energy in the matrix, new movements that effect every other part. Football is maths, systems, combinations, not a race to see who is most famous. Plus it made all kinds of sense if you watched England in the summer, when Kane was so immobile, a man wading through a portable highland peat bog in rain-sodden Ugg boots.
Still, though, dropping Kane felt doubly brave in the context of England’s week. There was a sense beforehand of tremors in the force. Fractures in the camp. Player pull-outs. A degree of pre-emptive distrust so profound Thomas Tuchel has basically already been fired for the crime of his birth.
Even the Olympic Stadium seemed to speak to this dynamic, a beautifully old school brutalist megalith, with scrolling beige seats, a vast swooping tubular 1970s starship roof, watery yellow lights and, best of all, a gratuitously vast running track.
This kind of place just carries that old baffled white shirt energy, the talk of “difficult” conditions, sweaty and tearful defeat. In those pre-match moments dropping Kane seemed a huge gamble for a must-win game, albeit an admirably egotistical call on Carsley’s part, a sod this kind of selection. I’ve got to be free, I’ve got to be me, I’ve got to be Lee.
It worked instantly as Watkins scored with his first touch. It was made by another Carsley-issue player, Noni Madueke, who made a fine driving run down the left and rolled out the perfect pull back.
In that period Madueke was really good, a fearless, upright runner, direct in all his movements. Jones was excellent all night, perfect for this kind of football because he likes the ball, skips about with his head up and actually enjoys passing and moving.
Jude Bellingham played with real authority and essentially scored the second with a lovely run and shot that ended up an own goal off the back of the Greece goalkeeper. Conor Gallagher bounced about like the kind of fond, excitable Labrador who just can’t help knocking over the tea things.
England are now in a sound position to achieve promotion from Nations League Group B. But this also felt like a moment of clarity, and of vindication even, for a man who looked here like he might just have been quite a lot of fun in the job.
