The manager is playing the long game with expectations

England fans are currently hovering somewhere between a full-blown nervous breakdown and blind, caffeinated optimism. With tomorrow’s World Cup kickoff in sight, Thomas Tuchel has decided the best way to handle the weight of sixty years of misery is to simply deny it exists. He spent yesterday’s presser playing down the favorite tag like he’s trying to sell a lemon of a used car. The man is essentially telling the Three Lions faithful that they should probably lower their blood pressure before the first whistle blows against the USA on Sunday.

The Great Expectations divide

The online discourse has predictably fractured into three distinct camps of lunatics. First, you have the Realists, who are currently scouring his career stats to make sure we don’t get a repeat of the 2014 England squad that couldn’t score in a brothel. They are terrified that Tuchel is using reverse psychology to hide some tactical flaw he hasn't figured out yet. These people have seen every failed cycle since 1966 and are convinced that hoping for anything more than a quarter-final exist is a trap.

The believers and the skeptics

Then you have the True Believers who think this is a masterstroke of 4D chess. They love the idea that Tuchel is taking the bullseye off England’s back. To them, the Sky Sports coverage suggests that the manager is genuinely trying to protect his squad from the toxic tabloid pile-on that usually follows an England side at a major tournament. They believe he’s essentially playing the role of the bouncer keeping the rowdy fans away from the dressing room door.

Finally, we have the Contrarians, the folks who reside permanently in the comments section just to watch the world burn. They argue that if you’re managing a squad with this much technical talent and you aren’t claiming you’re here to win the whole thing, you’ve already lost the plot. They don’t want humble; they want the swagger of a manager who believes he can out-think the rest of the world. Seeing him downplay the team’s quality just makes them want to throw pint glasses at the television.

Tactical obsession or PR spin?

Here is my take: Tuchel is absolutely working us. He knows that English fan culture is wired to implode the second something goes sideways, and he’s trying to establish a buffer zone. It feels remarkably similar to when he was tinkering with his defensive rotations in the Bundesliga, obsessively tweaking the mechanics while the pundits were losing their minds over every dropped point. He loves a siege mentality.

Is it annoying? Of course it is. As supporters, we feed on the chaos of being the team everyone loves to hate. Watching Southgate’s successor act like we’re the plucky underdogs when we have arguably the deepest roster in the competition is a hilarious act of gaslighting. But it’s also undeniably smart. Why give the opposition media any more ammunition than they already have?

However, the danger here is that he might just alienate his own side. If the team starts slow in matchday one, that 'we aren't the favorites' line is going to disappear faster than a cheap suit in a thunderstorm. Players hear everything, and if the fanbase decides they don't believe in the manager's humble act, the pressure will amplify tenfold. England needs to find a balance between being professional and showing they have the killer instinct of a champion, or they’ll be catching an early flight out of North America.

The reality is that no amount of press conference gymnastics will change the goal: 7 matches to lift the trophy. At the end of the day, if we exit early, nobody is going to care if he was humble or arrogant in the pre-tournament interviews. They’re going to care about whether he got the substitutions right and if the defensive structure holds up against the high-octane attacks of Brazil or France. Tuchel is holding all the cards, but in tournament football, the deck is often shuffled by pure luck and a bad call from a VAR official in the 89th minute.