Thomas Tuchel has described Saturday’s 7-0 hammering of Croatia as a “complete performance” which will help England move on from their World Cup heartbreak.
Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham, Anthony Gordon and Bukayo Saka put the Three Lions four up at the break before Kane, Saka and substitute Morgan Rogers struck again to inflict Croatia’s biggest defeat in their history.
Playing in front of a 6,329 crowd in Rijeka largely comprising schoolchildren after UEFA punished Croatia with a one-match stadium ban following crowd trouble against France in March, England dominated from start to finish and took a significant step towards next year’s Nations League quarterfinals.
But they are also looking to put an agonising World Cup semifinal defeat to Argentina behind them after a defeat to Spain and a routine 2-0 win over Czechia so far during this international break.
“This is the only way to move forward even if you still feel pain,” Tuchel said. “You have to play with the pain if you still feel the disappointment, you have to play with it, that is the nature of sport.
“It was not an easy camp in the beginning after this long tournament for multiple reasons. But straight away first training session on Tuesday, the build-up to the Spain game, we had an excellent performance against Spain but not the result [losing 3-2], the reaction to the result in Czechia [winning 2-0] and now the build-up [here.]
“The focus in the meetings, the translation of the meetings onto the pitch and to bring it within these circumstances in Croatia, to win with this dominant performance, that is the way to move on.
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“I’ve said many times, we will always have a scar, we will always feel pain and disappointment. That is the way it is but this is the way to move forward. We adjusted some stuff after some things after the World Cup and we played in the same manner in all three matches.
“We are getting better at it and the team buys into it, this is the most important.”
Asked whether it was the best display of his tenure since taking charge at the beginning of last year, Tuchel said: “Yeah I think so. It was a complete performance over 90 minutes.”
England face Czechia in their final match of the international break on Tuesday.
