England's Tactical Dilemmas Against Panama
In another universe, Thomas Tuchel would be spending this week arguing with his staff about whether to wrap Harry Kane in cotton wool or unleash him on Panama so he can chase Lionel Messi, Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappé in the Golden Boot race.
Instead, England are in New Jersey with a knot in the stomach and a calculator in hand.
The goalless draw with Ghana changed everything. That was supposed to be the night England locked up top spot, earned themselves a breather and turned this final group game into a glorified training session. They didn’t win, they didn’t convince, and now the “dead rubber” against Group L’s bottom seeds has become a live wire.
Four games in 13 days loom if England go deep. Tuchel knows the schedule is unforgiving. This was the one Ollie Watkins and Ivan Toney will have circled as Kane’s rest day; instead, the captain may be required to drag his tired legs through another 90 minutes to make sure England finish first and avoid a messy route through the knockouts.
Rotation, once a luxury, has turned into a risk assessment.
Selection headaches, and a right‑back problem that won’t go away
Changes are coming against Panama, some of them unavoidable. Declan Rice is walking a tightrope, one booking from a ban and seen with strapping on his left calf after the Ghana game. Tuchel can ill afford to lose his midfield anchor just as the tournament hardens.
The bigger blow is at right-back. Reece James’s hamstring has betrayed him again and he is out for at least two matches. Nobody in the England camp can claim they didn’t see that coming. James missed almost two months at the end of the season with the same issue; his fitness has long been a gamble, and now the bill has arrived.
Tuchel’s defensive bets are unravelling. He took only three attacking full-backs to the tournament. Tino Livramento, another with a fragile record, has already gone home and been replaced not by a like-for-like runner but by centre-back Trevoh Chalobah. The job of providing width and thrust from deep now rests on the young shoulders of Nico O’Reilly.
The options behind James are functional rather than frightening. Ezri Konsa, Jarell Quansah and Djed Spence can all do a job at right-back, but none is a natural raider. Every minute they play, the omission of Trent Alexander-Arnold will be held up to the light and questioned again.
What should have been a straightforward assignment against Panama suddenly feels awkward. The price of that draw with Ghana is clear: England cannot cruise through this one.
Kane, Bellingham and the question of rhythm
So do Kane and Jude Bellingham go again? Tuchel will not want to rip out the spine of his team and stumble into the last 32 from second place. The path matters. So does momentum.
England were electric when space opened up against Croatia. Then came the familiar second-game stumble at a major tournament, this time against a Ghana side who sat deep, stayed compact and refused to blink. Tuchel has no interest in panic, but he does recognise a pattern. His England have too often looked blunt when the opposition retreat to the edge of their own box.
Panama, already out after 1-0 defeats to Ghana and Croatia, are unlikely to be expansive hosts. Thomas Christiansen’s team were awkward in both matches and far more streetwise than the side that lost 6-1 to England at the 2018 World Cup. Tuchel expects a back five that regularly becomes a back six or even seven, with bodies clogging the central channels and every yard contested.
He has seen this film before. England have sparkled against Croatia, Serbia and Wales when given grass to run into. They have trudged through Andorra, Albania and Latvia when faced with a wall of shirts. Ghana added themselves to that list.
The numbers from New Jersey were stark. Kane touched the ball only 19 times. He exchanged just three passes with Bellingham. England hogged 78.8% of the possession yet did not force a shot on target until after the interval. Thomas Partey followed Kane everywhere, smothering his trademark drops into midfield and cutting off England’s favourite passing lane.
The low block still haunts Tuchel.
He admitted as much, conceding he has not yet found the magic sequence that guarantees a way through: if the opponent does this, England do that, problem solved. He wants his side to be active, aggressive, to control counters without becoming reckless. What he will not do, he insists, is throw seven players onto the last line and defend with three. “It’s not serious enough,” he said.
Risk, precision and a misfiring left flank
Tuchel’s blueprint is clear. England should create overloads in key zones, then quicken the tempo to punch holes in the block. The trouble is, Ghana never allowed those overloads to form. He suspects Panama will be just as stubborn.
That demands more risk on the ball. It demands composure when Panama try to drag the game into a stop-start scrap. Bellingham’s irritation against Ghana told its own story; his cheap foul on the stroke of half-time summed up a night where England’s frustration outstripped their fluency.
The centre-backs will have to step in more boldly, dragging markers out and opening pockets. Kobbie Mainoo’s ability to operate in tight spaces makes him a genuine candidate to relieve Rice and give England a different rhythm in midfield.
Out wide, the message is blunt: run at your full-back, or someone else will. Tuchel hopes Bukayo Saka is fit enough to start on the right in place of Noni Madueke. On the left, Anthony Gordon’s influence has faded badly. Marcus Rashford waits in the wings, still to convince Tuchel he can be decisive from the first whistle, but very much in the frame.
There are other options. Eberechi Eze or Morgan Rogers could drift inside from the left, linking with Bellingham and Kane and leaving the flank to the full-back. The problem is that the connections down that side have frayed since Gordon and O’Reilly combined so promisingly in the friendly win over Costa Rica earlier this month.
Tuchel thought the puzzle was solved. “OK, left side is solved,” he admitted he had felt. Then came the competitive games. The penetration disappeared, the vertical runs dried up, and the same staleness appeared in both group matches.
Against Ghana, the right-footed Spence offered little on the ball when he replaced the more adventurous O’Reilly at left-back. Rashford only arrived in the 83rd minute, too late to change the narrative. Tuchel did not hide his irritation: the entire left flank has to provide more threat.
One-against-one, or nothing
Tuchel keeps steering the conversation back to the collective, to structure and patterns, but he knows this kind of match is often decided by individuals. He has challenged his players to relish the “one-against-ones”, to accept that Panama will do everything to deny them overloads and force them into duels.
Breaking a low block is rarely pretty. It requires that single clean cross, that one shot from distance that takes a nick and wrong-foots the goalkeeper, that run to the near post that nobody tracks. Tuchel wants more aggression on the end of crosses, more willingness to shoot from the edge of the box, more insistence on forcing the goal rather than waiting for it.
He is keeping perspective. Ghana, coached by Carlos Queiroz, are nobody’s idea of easy opponents. Tuchel has seen this kind of contest in the Champions League: an underdog who celebrates every duel, every turnover, every counterattack as if it were a goal. Ghana treated crossing the halfway line like a triumph and savoured their 0-0 as if they had won the group.
England do not have that luxury. Expectations sit on their shoulders. They are obliged not just to progress but to entertain, to show a level of invention and authority that has been missing since the Croatia game.
Panama will sit deep, spoil and wait. England have to find a way to loosen the tension, to send a message to the rest of the tournament and to themselves that they can unpick the kind of defence that has so often stalled them.
Somewhere between control and chaos, Tuchel has to find the gear that releases the handbrake.
