How a subtle tactical shift and Anthony Gordon gave England reason to believe ahead of the World Cup

All of a sudden, England’s task at the World Cup feels a little less daunting. The warm-up win over Costa Rica wasn’t just comfortable but also composed and controlled. The Three Lions looked fit, sharp, and hungry – and none of them more so than Anthony Gordon.

Gordon has an awful lot to prove right now. Not only does he have to demonstrate that he’s worthy of a place in England’s starting line-up ahead of Marcus Rashford, but also that he’s the kind of player who can pay back the £70m that Barcelona spent to sign him from Newcastle. He is arguably under more personal pressure than most players in the squad.

Anthony Gordon gave England reason to believe against Costa Rica

A good World Cup would go a long way towards silencing his sceptics – of which there are plenty - and Wednesday’s decisive display was a fine starting point. Gordon created England’s opener, won an admittedly soft penalty which was overturned by VAR, scored another spot-kick later on in the piece and ran Costa Rican right-back Shawn Johnson so ragged that he was the only player they took off at half-time.

Daring and aggressive with his dribbling down the left flank, Gordon tied Johnson and his team-mates in knots. Where Noni Madueke was arguably a little too one-note down the right, almost always looking to cut inside when he picked up possession, Gordon displayed variety, his marker never quite sure of which way he was going. Few wingers are equally comfortable hitting the byline and cutting back in as Gordon is. That versatility is a part of what makes him so appealing to Tuchel – and to Barcelona.

Crucially, he backed up his bravery on the ball against Costa Rica with production. Prior to Wednesday night, he had scored just two goals for England in his 18 caps and had never provided an assist. A direct playing style is all well and good, but it will only make a difference to England’s World Cup campaign if he backs it up with the finishing touch.

Some of the criticism levelled at Gordon over the course of the last year was due to the fact that he only managed six goals in the Premier League for Newcastle, but he also managed to score 10 times in 12 Champions League games and this was, in total, his best scoring season yet. There are signs that he is actually becoming more incisive with experience.

That added cutting edge will be essential this summer. England have plenty of attacking talent on paper but are perhaps a little too reliant on Harry Kane to do the actual scoring. The goal threat needs to come from all angles, and the attacking play needs to be more multi-dimensional, to worry the best defences in the world. Gordon’s performance against Costa Rica was a step in the right direction both for himself and for the team as a whole.

A good evening in Orlando wasn’t just a marker of a man stepping up to the plate when he’s required to, however, but also a product of some relatively subtle adjustments made by Tuchel to England’s system – a tactical shift which gave England more fluency, more control, and more threat in the final third.

The subtle tactical shift which improved England

Since taking charge of England at the beginning of 2025, Tuchel has stuck fast to a 4-2-3-1 formation with Declan Rice and Elliot Anderson working together in a midfield double pivot. Against Costa Rica, however, he switched things up, with Anderson playing a purely holding role in a 4-3-3 as Rice and Jude Bellingham pushed wider and further forward, connecting with the wingers on either side.

With the full-backs also both wider and more aggressively positioned than usual, England created three-man passing triangles on the wings which were lifted straight from Pep Guardiola’s 2010s playbook, and generated a series of three-on-two overloads in wide areas. They also offered up a tactical environment in which Gordon could thrive.

Whether this marked a change of strategy ahead of the group stage or was simply an experiment designed specifically to pick apart Costa Rica’s low block is unclear, but it worked. England dominated territory and possession – they enjoyed a massive 81% of the ball – and looked more fluid than they have at any point since they ripped Serbia apart in qualifying back in September.

There are risks attached to such a strategy, with one fewer player in a defensive position in midfield theoretically leaving England more open to the counter-attack, but Costa Rica were utterly unable to exploit that extra space and England were so comfortable on the ball that it may just be worth giving it a go against stronger sides. Certainly the adapted system created more opportunities for Gordon and Madueke to get involved in play in advanced areas.

It’s fair to acknowledge that Costa Rica didn’t present a particularly stern test of either the 4-3-3 or of any individual player. This wasn’t the same side which advanced from the group stage at England’s expense back in 2014, but a much weaker team whose flimsy defending and inability to keep hold of possession explained their failure to reach the World Cup finals this time around. But it was still an exercise which offered cause for confidence, and which pleased Tuchel far more than the rather dreary 1-0 win over New Zealand on Sunday.

“I wished for that, I demanded that,” Tuchel told the media after the match. “We want to push it to the next level, from intensity, commitment, cohesion, and we did that... We see the adaptation to the heat and we see things clicking.”

England looked well-acclimated to the broiling American summer after a tough training camp in Florida and will now travel to their main base of operations in Kansas City with renewed vigour and an impressive victory under their belts – and Gordon will start the tournament with every reason to believe that he can be a difference-maker, the world-class winger that Barcelona seemingly believe him to be. England need them to be proven right.