Before England flew from Kansas City up to Boston on Monday, Harry Kane had a clear message in a meeting with the rest of the squad.In England’s past three tournament campaigns, they had followed a win in their opening fixture with a dispiriting draw. The game against Ghana was a chance to change that history. With Kane’s words firmly imprinted upon them, the England team boarded the flight with renewed purpose. There was to be no letting up at the Boston Stadium.Well, sometimes even those who can remember the past are still doomed to repeat it.The most striking thing about this drab England draw with Ghana in the rain was just how overwhelmingly familiar it was. Like going back to a film you know word for word, or returning to the house you grew up in. You do not need to open the door; you already know exactly what you will find behind it.This could easily have been the 1-1 draw with Denmark in Frankfurt at Euro 2024. Or the 0-0 draw with the USA in Qatar in 2022. Or even the 0-0 draw with Scotland at Wembley in Euro 2020. Those were the three games that Kane was referring to, from their past three tournaments under Gareth Southgate. But playing like this in the second game of a tournament is no crisis. It is, in fact, a time-honoured tradition of English football. No one who witnessed the football wasteland of England 0-0 Algeria in Cape Town in 2010 will ever forget it.What makes this frustrating is that anyone who watched England demolish Croatia in Dallas last week came away with a sense that maybe this tournament would be different. That the intensity and dominance England played with, the barrage of chances they created, and the Premier League speed and rhythm they showed were all clear signs that Thomas Tuchel had cracked tournament football at the first attempt. Maybe they did not need to produce Deschamps-ball with English characteristics. Maybe Gazball was the right idea for a while, but it was holding England back. And Tuchel had proven its redundancy at the first attempt.England are no strangers to an awful tournament draw (Photo: HOANG DINH NAM / AFP via Getty Images)Maybe some of that is a stretch, but it was hard not to get swept away in that second half against Croatia. Everybody wants to see something that has never happened before. Something was thrilling about that sense of novelty we all left Dallas with.