It was the face Thomas Tuchel twisted, as much as the words he spoke, that told you Phil Foden’s World Cup hopes are disappearing into a hole as deep and dark as the one he inhabits every time he plays for England.
False nine? False 10? It’s all a false economy with the 25-year-old, because the cost to the team is simply too high. What a shame that is, for talent is not the issue here.
Tuchel wishes it was different. He likes Foden. He wants him to be good. The problem, for England, is that he very rarely has been. With 48 caps as a weighty body of evidence, allowing him to raise his bat for an unremarkable half century this summer feels like a risk no longer worth taking.
Foden has had two opportunities this past week, the only player to start both of England’s friendlies. He played as a No 10 in the 1-1 draw with Uruguay and lasted 56 minutes.
Then, as a false nine in the 1-0 defeat to Japan, he lasted just three minutes more. Across both matches there were no goals, no assists, one chance created, one shot off target, one touch in the penalty area and two dribbles.
So, has he taken his chance? Tuchel’s sigh and gurn were worth recording as much as the answer that followed, as telling as that was.
‘He tried everything,’ began the England boss. ‘I would say he was excellent in camp but, yeah, he struggles to show it on the pitch. Obviously he didn’t have a lot of minutes for (Manchester) City recently. Then he came to camp with the brightest smile and was so good in training and I thought he will just surprise us, and will play with the same verve and excitement. But yeah, he struggles to have the full impact.’
Can you take a player to a World Cup who ‘struggles’ to perform on a football pitch?
‘I can, I can…’ he said, laughing. ‘The question would be if we will.’
That sounds doubtful?
‘Well, it’s not a guarantee that he will come.’
Foden’s biggest problem now is that he’s unlikely to have the chance at City to influence Tuchel’s thinking. This was his chance and he did not take it. Those who know him insist he is desperate to do well for England.
There was a time when he looked like a somewhat reluctant wearer of the jersey, withdrawn and unable to express himself with the colour of his Sky Blue excellence. He looked like he longed for home.
But given the skies over Manchester have turned to grey of late, England was his window to shine, and he badly wanted to step through it. Tuchel recognised as much by his demeanour around camp – a happy and involved camper. Yet, as Tuchel himself accepts, that smile fades the moment Foden enters the pitch. What follows is all rather sad and subdued. Little touches. Lost touches. A lost soul.
Foden’s hope for inclusion in North America rests on pedigree, and the fact some of his rivals are digging holes of their own. Cole Palmer was more involved than Foden against Japan but, with it, far more wasteful.
Increasingly, you suspect, he needs space and a team who play on the transition. He does not open doors against a triple-bolted backline the way Foden can, or at least should be able to.
Morgan Rogers is another whose form, for club and country, is on the drift, as brilliant as he has been at times this season.
That leaves Jude Bellingham as the most likely starter at No 10, a player whose worth was multiplied by not playing this week. Likewise Harry Kane, and upon that pair do England’s World Cup dreams now hang.
Because from forging a collective in the autumn, during a perfect qualifying campaign, from spring has sprung what feels like a loose assembly of individuals, and no player more than Foden encapsulates that isolation.
This is what Tuchel worked so hard to move away from. This, after the various travails of Euro 2024 and the months that followed, was England re-United. The concern is that too many parts appear to be broken.
There are, then, many questions facing Tuchel between now and the summer. Sadly, Phil Foden does not feel like the answer to any of them.
