Contenders or Pretenders? England Face Familiar Questions After Ghana Draw

Rabat — A point from the Ghana game keeps England in the World Cup. It isn’t the end of the world, but when the final whistle went, nobody in the stadium looked particularly relieved; and that says something.

England arrives at every major tournament carrying the same weight. Squads packed with Champions League regulars, column inches full of expectation, a fanbase that genuinely believes this time might be different. This summer was no exception. On paper, they’re good enough to beat anyone. 

But, yet again, Ghana showed that paper means very little.

There were stretches where England looked comfortable enough, plenty of the ball, a few nice touches in the middle of the park. But comfortable isn’t the same as dangerous. Attacks kept stalling before they reached the point where they could actually threaten anything. The sharpness wasn’t there. The final ball wasn’t there. And Ghana, organized and completely unbothered by the occasion, were more than happy to let England pass sideways until they ran out of ideas. 

None of this is new criticism.

Talent isn’t the issue for The Three Lions, and it never has been. The question that keeps resurfacing is whether England’s players actually work as a unit, or whether they’re just a group of brilliant individuals who happen to be wearing the same shirt. The last game felt like the latter more than the former.

Modern international football doesn’t do reputations many favors either. The margin between the traditional giants and the well-coached challengers has never been thinner. Ghana came with a plan and executed it. England, for large parts, looked like they were still figuring theirs out.

That’s the thing about World Cup winners, they tend to know exactly who they are. Consider France in 2018, and Argentina in 2022. While both teams did have world-class stars, they also – and perhaps most importantly – had an identity. They espoused and executed to perfection a way of playing that didn’t change regardless of the opponent or the scoreline.

Still searching for an identity

England, though, is still searching for that.

Tournaments do have a way of turning, and plenty of eventual champions have had shaky starts. Argentina fumbled against Saudi Arabia in 2022, with that match producing one of the most memorable shocks in the history of the FIFA World Cup. So Tuchel still has time to fix things, and his squad does have the quality to make a deep run if it clicks. But the doubts are louder after Ghana than they were before it.

Can England make possession count when space is tight? Can they break down a team that sits deep and stays disciplined? Can the sum of the parts ever really match the individual quality on the roster?

Those are the questions that will follow them through this tournament.

Right now, they’re still in it, still contenders by virtue of what their squad looks like on paper. But there’s a version of England that’s been showing up at tournaments for decades now, a team whose reputation consistently runs ahead of its results.

After Thursday night, nobody’s quite sure which version this is. That is just how football works sometimes. 

While these early results are valuable in indicating the identity and character of each team when facing an opponent that plays or parks the bus, they will not dictate how the tournament ends. So anything is still possible in this World Cup, but the Ghana draw was indubitably a reality check for Tuchel and his star-packed squad.