Phil Foden didn’t deserve his England call-up, because nobody does | OneFootball

Each edition features an in-depth explainer on one of the week’s biggest tactical talking points, along with a few snippets of other curiosities I’ve spotted in recent matches. There’s even a Q&A section – your chance to weigh in on whatever nonsense has been going on lately.

This is going to read like a spectacular self-own but the first time I ever got paid to write about football, I did a 1,500-word essay on why Harry Kane did not deserve to get picked for the England squad. I’m that old.

Now, as an opening, that might be doing for my reputation what Lily Allen’s new album is doing for David Harbour’s Hinge – but it’s important context to show I am laughably serious about the point I’m going to make here. Phil Foden does not deserve to be in the England squad.

Not because of his talent, or his form, or because I have some bizarre personal axe to grind with him that dates back to a misunderstanding over seating arrangements at a boot launch event in 2023. It wasn’t his fault they hadn’t adequately marked out the reserved area, and if anything, he was overly understanding given how ‘difficult’ the free bar had made me.

Anyway – sorry – my point: nobody deserves to play for their national team, and that’s the hill I have long since chosen to die on.

You’ve likely seen the squad announcement by this point, and the news that Foden’s time in the international wilderness will come to an end with these dead rubbers against Serbia and Albania. The two major changes to the previous squad are that Morgan Gibbs-White, who was great, and Ruben Loftus-Cheek, who was there, make way for him and Bellingham.

It’s hard to argue against that sort of swap – and indeed nearly impossible after Man City’s walkover of Dortmund this week. Foden was, give him his due, sensational in that game, and scored two goals described by Pep Guardiola as – and I’m paraphrasing – trademark moments.

But the thing is, those exact moments neatly illustrate why he is flying for Man City this season but has just one goal and one assist in his last 24 England appearances. That’s only one goal and one assist more than I have for England in the last three years, and I’ve long since declared my eligibility for Scotland.

For the opening goal, Foden expertly found space between the lines and turned neatly on the ball as it was fired into him. He took a few strides to get into the optimal shooting position and sent a worm-burner curling into the far corner. It’s the sort of goal only the very best players score – and only the very, very best players score regularly. But look at Haaland.

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This isn't a one off (ACFC)

As the move develops, he’s standing in the exact spot from which Foden will eventually shoot. But as soon as he receives the ball, he drives towards goal, pulling defenders away and creating the space that makes the chance possible.

This isn’t a one-off either. If you’ve only seen the goals, you’ll have missed Dortmund’s early warning – their first real chance of note came from exactly the same pattern.

Foden receives between the lines, Haaland vacates the space by driving at goal, and Foden moves into it to get his shot away. To quote that Rio Ferdinand meme: this is what he does.

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This is what Foden does (ACFC)

I know we’ve all worked very hard with therapy or “just drinking” to try to forget the Euros last summer, but the sort of situation in which Foden thrives simply doesn’t exist for him in an England shirt. The near–Space Jam levels to which several of the nation’s best players seemingly lost all their powers made for maddening viewing – but it overwhelmingly came down to a clash of profiles.

Phil Foden, Jude Bellingham, Cole Palmer – the embarrassment of riches England have in the number 10 position – are all at odds with the man who remains their most important asset at this level: Harry Kane. He isn’t making those driving runs we see from Erling Haaland; in tight situations, he’s made a career out of running in the exact opposite direction. He gifts those around him space behind defenders to get in and score, not space in front of them.

England scored two genuinely great team goals in that entire tournament, and both were a direct result of Ollie Watkins being brought on to replace him. Against the Netherlands, he made that defence-stretching run in behind, and Palmer – operating in the space he’d left – found him with a great pass. Against Spain, he made that same run again, freeing up space on the edge of the box for Bellingham and Palmer to combine for the equaliser.

This is what it looks like when profiles complement each other.

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When profiles complement each other (ACFC)

Watkins pushes the Spanish defence back towards their own goal, creating the little highlighted pocket that shows where Bellingham is moving – and, eventually, where Palmer will score from.

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Creating pockets (ACFC)

The other benefit of those movements is that your 10s actually have something to hit when they do manage to get themselves on the ball. England’s two best moments in the entire tournament came as a direct result of replacing their best player. Funny old game.

Now, humour me for a second, right: the Multiverse. A theory that proposes our universe is simply one of countless infinite realities in which everything that can possibly happen both has and does. Suppose for a second that’s actually what’s going on – there will be a great number of them in which Erling Haaland simply loved being born in Leeds so much that he decided to represent England rather than Norway.

In 2007, upon the termination of his Manchester City contract, Alfie didn’t relocate the family back to Bryne. Maybe Roy Keane’s eight-studded receipt for those perceived sleights actually fixed the existing problems in his knee or something. Maybe he went to Oldham or Stockport instead. Either way, Erling’s growing up doing his paper round in Spinningfields and owns three different Oasis-branded bucket hats.

In those realities, I couldn’t be lobbying harder for Phil Foden’s inclusion in the England side – if indeed both he and I still exist and do the same jobs. Infinite universes mean there’s at least one where he’s writing a newsletter saying I’m too old now to be keeping James Trafford out of the side.

Thomas Tuchel’s biggest decision upon taking this job was about the future of Harry Kane, and he has quite emphatically opted to stick with him. Even the most cursory glance at what’s happening over in Munich this season tells you that was a no-brainer. Surrounded by players who visibly lick their lips at the prospect of running beyond him into those spaces, Bayern have won every single one of the 16 games they’ve played this season. Kane is personally sitting on 22 goals before it was even Bonfire Night – more on his own than every single team in the Premier League.

And yet. And yet. That does not mean he “deserves” to play for England either. International caps are not little certificates handed out for good performances. What it means is that a manager should feel very comfortable building a team around the way he operates as a centre-forward – even if it’s at the expense of his generationally talented colleagues.

Morgan Rogers has pulled up no trees at Villa Park this season, but he’s looked like a Bayern player in all but lederhosen when he’s started behind Kane in recent matches. Foden, through almost his entire England career, has looked fatally at odds with what the man in front of him is trying to do. The England manager has precious few games left to work out an appropriate role for him and, if he can’t find one, it won’t matter how much he might “deserve” to go to the World Cup.

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