There are, apparently, 82 days until England begin their World Cup campaign against Croatia in Dallas on June 17. After this dirge of a football match, it was tempting to view them not as opportunity to hone a challenge but as a stay of execution.
This was a dour night at Wembley, typified by the fact that England’s goal, nine minutes from time, was met with a crescendo of boos when it became clear the ball had been prodded over the line by Ben White, recalled to the squad after walking out on England at the 2022 World Cup.
England as World Cup favourites? Really? This may have been a second team but it was still a performance that did very little to suggest England have any momentum as they head towards the tournament. It is to be hoped Tuesday’s match against Japan offers more shoots of hope.
A win would have at least salvaged something from this farrago but England could not hang on. White, inevitably, gave away the injury time penalty from which Uruguay equalised. England were hanging on in the final seconds as Marcelo Bielsa’s side pressed for a winner.
Uruguay offered little more than stubbornness and irascibility and Federico Valverde but Thomas Tuchel will have seen little from his team of back-ups to persuade him that any of them made a compelling case for a starting role in the USA, Canada and Mexico.
Marcus Rashford produced one scintillating run in the first half and certainly did enough to ensure he is on the plane to Florida for England’s build-up. Cole Palmer made a difference when he came on. Adam Wharton looked assured. Harry Maguire played with authority.
England’s understudies produced a dirge of a performance in their penultimate friendly before flying Stateside
Thomas Tuchel is in danger of arriving in North America with little to no momentum behind his Three Lions
There was really very little else to cheer. If this was the last-chance saloon for Phil Foden to try to force his way into the party of 26, then I’m afraid he is still sitting at the bar, nursing his drink. He tried hard but he is short of confidence. He made little impression.
It was a good night not to be involved. Watching from the stands, Dean Henderson, Dan Burn, Marc Guehi, Ezri Konsa, Nico O’Reilly, Elliot Anderson, Declan Rice, Morgan Rogers, Anthony Gordon, Harry Kane and Bukayo Saka will all have known that their positions within Tuchel’s squad have been immeasurably strengthened simply by putting their feet up and watching their replacements labour.
Bielsa sat on his bucket on the touchline, just as he had done at Leeds. Even if James Garner and James Trafford made their debuts, Bielsa on his bucket was close to being the most entertaining image of the evening.
It was one of those nights where the atmosphere was more of a murmur than a roar, a night that can slip into nothingness and inertia if you let it, the kind of game that can become a graveyard of ambition for World Cup hopefuls.
It was the kind of night when the crowd watches transfixed as a paper plane floats down towards the Uruguay goalkeeper in the first 20 minutes and then cheers uproariously when it skims in to land in the six-yard-box.
The highlight of a first half that was almost entirely devoid of highlights was a blistering, brilliant run by Marcus Rashford that took him from one end of the pitch to the other, starting with turning Guillermo Varela inside out, outpacing Federico Valverde and skipping past his lunging tackle, and clipping in a cross that just eluded Dominic Solanke.
Ben White was the only England star to find the back of the net but did so to a chorus of boos
On a baffling night of refereeing decisions Sven Jablonski appeared miss that he had give Manuel Ugarte two yellow cards without sending him off
Federico Valverde scored from the spot after Uruguay were awarded the latest of penalties
Apart from that, it was very slim pickings. Foden was so desperate to get on the ball that he dropped deeper and deeper. He worked hard and did his best to orchestrate play but he never found space between the lines to do the damage he is capable of when he is at his best.
To no one’s great surprise, Valverde, scorer of a stupendous hat-trick in the first leg of Real Madrid’s recent Champions League Round of 16 tie with Manchester City, was the best player on the pitch in the opening 45 minutes. It was a low bar.
Jordan Henderson was exempt from that criticism. England’s captain for the night, he produced a tidy, busy, efficient performance and proved again that he will be Tuchel’s favourite back-up in the World Cup squad. He was replaced at half-time by Adam Wharton, his job done.
Foden’s second half got off to a worrying start when he stretched for a ball and was cleaned out by a thunderous tackle by Ronald Araujo. Araujo got the ball cleanly but his momentum took his right boot clattering into the top of Foden’s foot and his ankle. The referee did not even give a foul. On the touchline, Tuchel was apoplectic with rage.
Araujo was lucky to escape a red card. Foden limped back on to the pitch after a delay and managed one jinking run and a miscued shot but ten minutes into the second half, he was replaced by Cole Palmer. Foden walked gingerly to the touchline and was given a consolatory hug by Tuchel on his way back to the bench.
There is a suggestion that Palmer and Foden are now in competition for one place in the creative midfielder position, given that Rogers and Bellingham, and probably Eze, too, are ahead of them both in Tuchel’s hierarchy.
If that is the case, Palmer made more of an impression. It was down to him, in fact, that England finally created a clear chance with 20 minutes to go. Palmer was fouled on the edge of the Uruguay area and when he curled in the free kick, Dominic Calvert-Lewin met it unmarked six yards out and somehow contrived to glance it wide.
England seemed to have won the match when Palmer’s corner squirmed through to White on the far post but White mistimed a challenge on Federico Vinas and Valverde buried the penalty.
