Lee Carsley achieved something at Wembley that might have seemed impossible just a few short weeks ago. On a thrilling, almost entirely shapeless night of international football Carsley made Gareth Southgate look as though, actually, just maybe, he might have known what he was doing, laying on a performance and tactical plan that it was in its own way a wonderfully selfless tribute to his oddly maligned predecessor.
Ok, Carsley seemed to be saying here. The people want full-on, brakes-off, English roar-ball. Let’s see what that actually looks like. And the answer, of course, in any version of the real world, is… well, what exactly? Like a collapsed wedding cake rolling down an ornate set of stairs, while a football match takes place nearby. Like confused talented people running strangely. Like watching someone trying to construct a dinghy out of only liquorice, diamonds and vibes. At some point you will need some twine and a bit of driftwood. But carry on. It’s kind of mesmerising.
Nobody could say this wasn’t fun right to the end as a half empty stadium roared confusedly, Jude Bellingham’s spanked equaliser looked to have saved the day at home to the 48th ranked team in the world, only for Greece to finally take one of their chances at the death.
And yes, people may be hard on Greece for only winning 2-1. But you can only beat what’s in front of you. And the thing in front of them here was basically an idea off the internet. No doubt Carsley has the best intentions with these games, one of them being to try and get the England job by making people like him and think he’s a new thing. But this was also the most shapeless, weirdly arrogant attempt to reinvent the basic notion of international football against a team that can actually play.
Wembley had been a chilly, tinny place at kick-off, with the familiar midweek feeling of some lukewarm light entertainment spectacle taking place. But this was also a genuinely fascinating occasion. Here was Carsley’s chance to express his vision, the Carsley-shaped future.
And so we got the England of everything everywhere all at once. This was the whole tube of Pringles. Easter eggs for breakfast. Bellingham started in a false-ish nine-ish role. Behind him, well, count ‘em, snap that full house down. Saka. Palmer. Foden. Gordon. This was Carsley: Full Throttle, out there on his diamanté Vespa, gunning it in doughnuts around the Aldi carpark, watermelon vapes falling from his pockets.
Even in the buildup Carsley had talked seductively, promising a flood of No 10s. It made career sense. The verdict of the gallery is important. The FA would clearly like to appoint him if they can. Playing all of his most pleasing attackers was the perfect opportunity to sell himself, to be the fun new stepdad. Those who grew tired of Southgate, who saw some vast act of betrayal in not winning all the tournaments, could now leap into the warm bath of Carsley for vindication.
In the event Carsley’s England produced instead a 90-minute real-time demonstration of why loading all your attacking players on the pitch is not the way to create coherent attacking football. The chief irony being, England didn’t actually do very much attacking. Creativity comes from structure. And while there were some early chances, at the other end England were wide open right form the start. This is not a surprise. This team was designed to be open. Cool, bro. It’s under control.
Carsley was out straight away on his touchline, wearing for the occasion skintight jeggings and cropped hoodie that drew attention to 1. his tracksuit coach credentials; and 2. his buttocks. So England set off on a half of free jazz, but free jazz without any proper instruments, just banging on a plastic bag, a crate of dates, a bicycle wheel.
Cole Palmer dropped in as the second holding midfielder, which is a funny idea in its own right, like asking King Charles to rig up some jump leads on your car. Phil Foden buzzed about playing No 10 behind a false nine, which is not really a thing. You could actually see Foden thinking this as the half wore on. What have I … what does he …?
At times England noodled about keeping the ball. But this was also formation where you’re going to have lots of possession with an opponent dropping deep, but then no striker to cross it to, an expert act of tactical foot-shooting.
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Behind this Declan Rice was every midfielder. Just, “do” midfield will you Dec. All the mid-fielding. We’ll be over there. Rice could have been booked for one early lunge, and was later, stretching to cover the open spaces.
A 0-0 scoreline at half-time seemed odd, and not just because England would be 8-0 down playing like this against France. They also had just one shot on target at that stage despite having all the players out there, all the jam today.
There were no England changes at the break. Trust the process. Believe. Grow. And Greece duly took the lead. The goal involved walking through the heart of England’s team, Vangelis Pavlidis free to shoot into the corner with a strange rump of white shirts flinching in front of him.
By the end, With Dom Solanke and Ollie Watkins now on, England finished up playing classic 4-4-2, a fascinating Benjamin Button style reversion to the tactical soup from which Carsley emerged, back in the safe warm space of a David Moyes Everton team. It worked a bit better because the players knew what to do.
But Greece were dogged and passionate and really wanted to win this game, which is after all the point. No doubt England and Carsley wanted it just as much. But if this was, as it seemed a populist’s pitch for the permanent job, it felt by the end like a fairly disastrous tactical backfire.
