Standing in a corridor near the team bus late on Thursday night, England manager Thomas Tuchel was ready. Time, it seemed, for a little payback.
‘So am I lucky,’ he asked with a smile as big as the Wembley arch.
‘Am I lucky? Am I lucky?’
Tuchel, it seems, is a manager who doesn’t forget.
It had only been six days previous that it had been suggested to him that he wouldn’t win big games without his best players.
‘Do you have proof of that?’ he had asked shortly after unveiling a squad with no Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden in it.
Thomas Tuchel was vindicated in leaving out Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden from his squad
England thrashed Wales 3-0 in a convincing, spirited performance at Wembley
However, we also know that England simply cannot go to the World Cup without Bellingham
And here he was, an hour after a 3-0 win over Wales at Wembley, feeling happy and confident enough to drop it all back on the toes of those who had doubted him.
There is an argument that a friendly against Wales was not exactly the kind of big game we had been talking about. Brazil in New York in a World Cup semi-final was more the kind of thing we all had in mind.
Nevertheless, we can concede some ground on that point. Just as we can on the matter of Bukayo Saka scoring the goal of the night against Wales. Tuchel had admitted, of course, that the Arsenal player would not have been in the squad either had his club mate Noni Mudueke not pulled out with an injury.
For the point is that Tuchel – whether he admits it publicly or not – took a huge gamble on sticking with the same players who served him well in the September World Cup qualifying double header against Andorra and Serbia and managed to pull it off.
So, yes, we will give him this one. The Bellingham argument is a nuanced one and has legs in it yet. The Real Madrid player will simply have to come back in at some stage and the England manager will know that as well as anybody. England simply cannot go to the World Cup next summer without their best player.
Nevertheless, we see emerging in Tuchel an England manager of substance, confidence, perspective and conviction and that is what actually matters today.
The national team job is multi-faceted and is not just about coaching. The public-facing stuff is important too. A combination of that and of the pressure to win every single game you play, with no exception, can bring with it intense amounts of stress.
It was too much for Kevin Keegan and, before him, Graham Taylor. It was too much for Steve McClaren and, despite all his European experience, for Roy Hodgson too.
Tuchel must find a way to settle his differences and integrate the Real Madrid star into his team
Keegan never recovered from his spell in charge of England, not really. He worked again but turned up at Manchester City seven months after resigning at Wembley a completely different person. Taylor, by his own gentle admission, struggled to let go of it all also.
Tuchel’s path will be determined very much by how England perform next summer. It will be a challenging tournament in many ways. But so far he presents as a coach carrying the load of England manager relatively lightly and we should all be encouraged by that.
The former Chelsea manager knew exactly what he was doing and why when he left Bellingham out. He also knew the reaction it would cause and the huge hole he would be encouraged to jump in to had things not gone well against the Welsh. But he did it anyway simply because he felt it was the right thing to do.
Told rather bluntly as he sat with the written media in the home dressing room at Wembley 24 hours before kick off on Wednesday that he had put himself under pressure by making the calls he had, Tuchel leaned forward on his plastic chair and spread his hands out.
‘Yes but you media always do this,’ he said.
‘So what’s the difference now? It will always be the same.
‘You will always ask: “Is this the right team?” no matter who I pick and if we lose you will say it’s the wrong team.
‘It’s the way it is. It’s fair enough.’
Former managers such as Graham Taylor (left) and Kevin Keegan (right) have struggled with the pressure
At least we can be sure that we have a manager of conviction and confidence in Tuchel
But for Tuchel to pick fights with the fanbase, he first needs to beat top opposition in a competitive game
It’s hard not to get the sense that Tuchel sees media interaction in the way many of us view a detuned radio. Like white noise. It’s not a bad predisposition for an England manager to have.
Some of his messages are new and as such a little fresh, meanwhile.
Tuchel’s assertion, for example, that England should go to the World Cup with an underdog mentality was one of the smartest things one of our national coaches has said for a long time. Time and again England teams have travelled to summer tournaments burdened by overdue pressure and expectation.
If Tuchel – a foreigner – can change that narrative then it will be an achievement on its own. And the success or otherwise of that will depend in part on what happens between now and next summer.
An England manager is only ever one poor result away from a dollop of muck and England now face three qualifiers in a row, in Latvia on Tuesday and then at home to Serbia and away in Albania. Next spring’s games will be friendlies and they will be at Wembley.
Tuchel’s words about the crowd on Thursday were easy to understand, even if he did subsequently row back a little on all that. He doesn’t have enough credit in the bank to start picking fights with the England fanbase.
He will have to win a seriously big game before he can think about doing that.
