Tuchel seeks tonic to England World Cup ‘scar’ in Spain showdown

World champions Spain’s visit to Wembley on Saturday is a painful reminder to England of what might have been, but Thomas Tuchel needs a positive response to silence criticism of how the Three Lions’ World Cup ended.

Had England held out for the final five minutes plus stoppage time against Argentina two months ago, they would have met Spain in the World Cup final.

Instead, Tuchel’s men conceded twice after he had attempted to batten down the hatches with a series of defensive substitutions.

“There’s not much sense in torturing ourselves looking back,” said Tuchel when announcing his squad for four Nations League games over the coming weeks.

But the German coach admitted to being left “unfulfilled” by failing to achieve his target of a second star on the England jersey.

Bukayo Saka went even further on Wednesday by revealing “there’s still a scar in us” over what happened in Atlanta.

“You try to move on as soon as possible, but you know, a scar is a scar (and) decides to heal when it heals itself,” added the Arsenal forward.

Saka’s non-inclusion, even off the bench, during the World Cup semi-final was one of the many reasons to question Tuchel’s judgement.

Although troubled by fitness concerns during the tournament, just days later Saka scored a hat-trick against France in a 6-4 victory to secure the consolation of third place.

Despite the criticism, Tuchel said his own interactions with supporters since the World Cup have been positive.

‘Gap is closing’

A 3-2 victory over Mexico in their own iconic Azteca Stadium will live long in the memory, while England twice came from behind to win knockout matches at a World Cup for the first time since 1966.

“About 99.9% of the fans don’t speak about substitutions, tactical twists, and tactical things,” the former Chelsea manager added.

“They speak about where they have watched the Mexico game, they speak about the second half, the energy of the Croatian match, they speak about how nerve-wracking it was to watch our match against Congo, and where they celebrated.”

A capacity of 90,000 crowd will be in attendance on Saturday, and Tuchel badly needs to give them reason to believe he is the man to finally lead England to a first major tournament win since 1966.

A home Euros in two years’ time presents a perfect opportunity and potentially a final one for talismanic captain Harry Kane, who turned 33 earlier this year.

Spain’s march to glory on the other side of the Atlantic proved they are the standard England must aspire to.

Luis de la Fuente’s men last lost a competitive game, not including penalty shootouts, three-and-a-half years ago.

Tuchel’s task is to transform his enthusiasm onto players left physically and emotionally drained from their World Cup experiences.

The Nations League will not scratch England’s itch to win a major tournament, but it would be a major stepping stone and provide a launchpad towards the Euros.

“We feel the gap is closing, and we feel that we are close, and we want to prove a point,” said Tuchel. “The stadium is sold out, it will be very exciting, the motivation cannot be higher to play against the world champions.”

Spain have reached at least the final of the last three editions of the competition, while England have made a semi-final only once and were even relegated to the second tier in the 2022/23 campaign.

The sides ranked one and four in the world are strong favourites to reach the quarter-finals with Croatia and the Czech Republic to come.

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