England have their best chance of winning World Cup since 1970 and Tuchel is the key | Barney Ronay

"There is an entire multilayered history of Englishness in the basic tone and mood of English World Cup excitement. It is easy to forget that when the 1982 squad, AKA Ron's 22, released the song This Time, a tortured paean to finally erasing their own ancestral agony, England had actually won the World Cup only 16 years earlier. This was like Spain winning it in 2010 and then doing a song next year saying, oh, finally, finally we're going to assuage our endless generational failure."

"To be fair, Ron's 22 did a brilliantly authentic job of it, faces set with funereal dignity, belting out their Vnecked Viking death hymn. But then, the English are born to feel this. It's the safe space: wounded lions, comfort in longing, failure as epic drama, thwarted greatness as a form of national identity. Through corned beef fumes on the quays of Mexico City, to rage at Gareth Southgate for providing actual, tangible hope, because hope is the one thing they'll never forgive you for, this has been the tone."

"It has also been the most beautiful part of England football, more deeply cherished than actually doing well in 1990, or just accepting that maybe we're not very good and need to work out a way to coach and play. It is important to state all this again now England have qualified with great efficiency for the tournament next year in the US, Mexico and Canada. If only because it makes Thomas Tuchel's job description win the World Cup or fail seem less like a doomed mission and more a simple truth. Let's face it, this has been the case for every England manager, even when success has been a much more distant prospect."

English football identity is rooted in a layered history of longing, wounded pride and ritualized hope, exemplified by nostalgic songs and dramatic narratives. The 1982 squad's song 'This Time' embodied ancestral agony despite past success, reflecting a tendency to valorize failure as national character. Sentiment ranges from melancholic reverence to furious rejection of tangible hope, creating a culture that prizes feeling over pragmatic evaluation. Qualification for the upcoming tournament reframes managerial expectation as a simple truth rather than a doomed quest. Managers inherit the burden of reconciling romanticized national identity with the practical demands of coaching and performance.

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