Thomas Tuchel had his big moment in a World Cup qualifier but home fans were more concerned with off-pitch issues
Sport: it just keeps on trying to tell you things. On a gripping, clammy, oddly distracted night in Belgrade, England and Serbia produced what felt at times like a twin-track spectacle, a perfect embodiment of the idea of elite sport as a kind of theatre that takes while the world burns around it.
There seemed to be two quite different things happening in the same timeline. In the first of these, the official spectacle, England produced an expertly controlled away performance, in the process all but sealing qualification for the World Cup. This was a Morgan Rogers story, a Thomas Tuchel finds his moment story, the transition from joyless wiry German death-football technocrat to fun wiry German tactical rainmaker.
The second event, running in concert, was the sight of strange goings on in the Serbian crowd that seemed to have very little to do with football but which looked quite a lot like the silencing of dissent in real time.
The entire twin-track timeline was captured in eight second-half minutes. With the game already beginning to stagger towards its end point like a wounded bison, England went 3-0 up. The goal was made by a goalkeeping blunder, a ricochet off Marc Guéhi’s chest, and a loose ball smashed in by Ezri Konsa. Serbia were that kind of opponent by this point, ready to collapse like an over-dunked digestive biscuit whenever England pressed with any precision.
