England: Thomas Tuchel convinced Three Lions can reach level of world's best after watching Portugal's Nations League win

Thomas Tuchel remains convinced England can compete with the world’s best, despite once again criticising the approach of his players against Andorra.

The England boss had slammed his players' "lack of urgency, lack of quality and lack of energy" in the final part of their underwhelming 1-0 World Cup qualifying win against Andorra on Saturday and has followed that up by saying the "physical input" from his side was not enough.

That performance was in sharp contrast to the high-quality Nations League games which took place last week, culminating in Portugal's penalty shoot-out win over Spain in Sunday's final to clinch the title.

Tuchel and his players sat down to watch that game and admitted those sides have set the benchmark for his squad ahead of next summer's World Cup.

"It was high level in the final," said Tuchel. "High-quality football. The first 45 minutes were excellent. Then I could see the players get tired and the level drop a little bit.

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"Portugal won, congratulations to Roberto [Martinez] and his team. They have another title. We hope to compete for the final four the next time.

"That's the standard, that's the benchmark, we will try to hunt that, to reach that and I'm convinced we have everything it takes to match that when we play these teams... even if it didn't look like that on Saturday between 6pm and 8pm!

"In general, I'm convinced we have what it takes to compete on that level."

Reflecting on the win over Andorra, he said: "I think there was common sense in the dressing room straight after and on our way back, we had the same feeling we could have done better.

"There are always two sides, when you're emotional and you don't like the performance and how we played, we also have to look at the side where we created an xG of four. If we look at other top sides who played Andorra, we created more xG than them but we underperformed in converting chances, in being clinical, in the efficiency, in the accuracy.

"We underperformed clearly in the physical input into the game, which we could see on the sideline and in the data. We ran not enough. I know it's a deep block to break down, it will always be difficult. But even then, to have the physical input, to have more high intensity runs, counter movements... we were lacking that.

"No harm done. We were critical with our performance. If we had the same performance and a 4-0 [win] then everyone would have felt differently. The conclusion: we stay committed to our beliefs, to training. Excellent performance and attitude in training [on Sunday], we watched tennis together and football together. it was a good atmosphere, we're ready to go again on Tuesday."

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England have the opportunity to show an immediate improvement on that display against Andorra when they host Senegal in a friendly on Tuesday at Nottingham Forest's City Ground.

Tuchel has confirmed he will make changes to the team - and that Bukayo Saka will start that match for his first appearance under the German. He also hinted captain Harry Kane is likely to be in the XI.

The head coach is also weighing up the possibility of giving players more freedom within his system, even if the team may not appear so attacking to the one which started against Andorra.

"I'm impatient," he said. "We want to do better. We're thinking of giving the players a little more freedom within the structure.

"I still think it was a very offensive line-up we tried to break the line down [against Andorra].

"[On Tuesday] we face a more physical and demanding team and maybe from the first look on the paper [the XI will not appear] as offensive as Andorra but [we may] give the players a little bit more freedom to express themselves and hopefully we see the next step straight away on Tuesday."

(c) Sky Sports 2025: England: Thomas Tuchel convinced Three Lions can reach level of world's best after watching Portugal's Nations League win