England missed a trick with Lee Carsley - they'd be daft to ignore him again

Daily Mirror

5 hours ago

Having got a couple of deeply underwhelming performances out of the way in early June, Thomas Tuchel's summer is not likely to be overly busy. Apparently, he will be at the Club World Cup - he might already be there - to assess conditions in the United States ahead of next summer's serious tournament.
It's hot, Thomas. But now England's under-21 squad have completed the splendid achievement of making the final of the Euros, Tuchel will, hopefully, be in Bratislava to see the showdown with Germany.
If nothing else, for a show of support. Considering he is a gun hired for 18 months, development teams are of limited concern to Tuchel.
One or two of the under-21 party in the final will have a chance of making it to World Cup 2026 - Tino Livramento is probably the prime candidate. But the bulk of Tuchel's squad for next summer is probably already settled.
Get your suitcase packed, Jordan Henderson. But the work that is being done - and has been done - by Lee Carsley has been invaluable to the long-term future of the English national team.
In the shape of Germany, there is one more formidable final barrier for the under-21s to hurdle but a second successive major tournament triumph would be a remarkable achievement. And it would be testament not only to Carsley's tactical acumen and footballing brain, but to his ability to foster a club culture in a national team.
Almost as eye-catching as the performance that produced a 3-1 quarter-final win over Spain last Saturday was the way Carsley's players stood up for each other in the melee at the end of the contest. It was all-for-one and one-for-all stuff.
'There are better ways to build camaraderie,' smiled Carsley, but, deep down, he must have been proud. It is a cliche, but this is another England under-21 vintage that looks like a band of brothers.
'They are a really together group,' Carsley said. 'But I have been with together groups that have gone home quite early.'
In other words, camaraderie is great but you need a lot, lot more than that to win a tournament. At under-21 level especially, you need to adapt to the inevitable churn of personnel.
A little while ago, you might have expected the likes of Liam Delap, Jobe Bellingham, Adam Wharton and Taylor Harwood-Bellis to play key roles in the Euros but, for one reason or another, all are absent.
They might not have been massively convincing in the group stages - winning one, losing one and drawing one - but Carsley has adapted and to win a coaching battle against a Spanish counterpart and then a Dutch counterpart is another feather in his cap.
Carsley, of course, was given a six-game spell as interim senior manager and the only blot on his attractive copybook was a maverick team selection that led to a Nations League home defeat by Greece. Regardless of that hiccup, the Football Association, it seems, were always going to go down the Tuchel route.
For the big job, they were always going to ignore a succession from within, a man proven to know what it takes to win an international tournament, a coach who players clearly love playing for. When Tuchel disappears back into lucrative club management in just over a year's time, the FA would be daft to ignore him again.
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