Over the course of this World Cup campaign, Thomas Tuchel has tried to make things easier for England by dividing the tournament into chunks.First came the group stage, then what Tuchel calls the “grind” section when England had the last-32 and last-16 games in quick succession. And now the “exciting part”, starting with Saturday’s quarter-final against Norway in Miami. Win that, and they will be just one game from the World Cup final at MetLife Stadium next Sunday.Tuchel is an imaginative communicator and has landed on a distinctive way to convey that message to his players, to help them to understand. Tuchel has compared this tournament — potentially eight games spread across just under five weeks — to the slog of a Premier League campaign.So this section, starting on Saturday, is being likened to April and May, when teams have to go all out to win the trophies they have been aiming for all season.But the “grind” section that England have just emerged from is best compared to cold January away nights in the Premier League. “I think in general, what it takes in the round of 32 and the round of 16, that was how we framed it with the team: you find a way to win,” he told reporters in Kansas City. “If you need a picture from the Premier League, it is January. It is FA Cup. It’s away in Sunderland; it’s away in Leeds.“You go. It’s adversity. It’s not good weather. You don’t like the decisions of the referee. Everything feels bad. They are on the front foot. You just need to get it done. If you want to be at Wembley in the end, you just need to get it done. Don’t go out in January; don’t go out in February. No one will ask you any more how you did it.”How to pronounce Norwegian player namesReuben Pinder and Joe CrisalliNot many managers would compare the Azteca Stadium to Elland Road or the Stadium of Light. Tuchel has always spoken with an almost religious reverence about the venue where England won last Sunday night, how the experience of going there, into a city of 20million football fans, made him “feel alive”. But the point he was making was that the football challenge was the same as a difficult winter away trip.“I was heavily in love with this experience in Mexico, to change country, to fly into such a football country, such an emotional country,” Tuchel said. “Training on the Pumas training ground was very special, and to play in the Azteca and have a match like this was really the full package of an experience.”The dominant feeling in the England camp this week, however, has not been looking back at Mexico, but looking forward to Norway. Take the W and move on.If England keep progressing, then Tuchel is right, no one will ask any more how they got here. No one will ask about the fact that they were 1-0 down to DR Congo with 15 minutes left, or about how awful they were before the first drinks break in Atlanta. No one will ask about the chances they conceded in Mexico City, nor that they barely touched the ball for much of the second half, defending in their penalty area for far longer than they would have wanted to. The only thing that matters at this stage is the fact that they won both games.But Tuchel also knows that this stage ahead of England is not like that. If England are going to beat the best teams in the next eight days and win the World Cup, then they will need to show their absolute best and “go for it”, with no regrets.“Then come the exciting times,” Tuchel said. “Then comes April, then comes May. Things can become easier and then you have your identity, and you have to let go. This is now, for me, the exciting part, but we need to let go. We need to now connect to our identity, connect to what makes us strong, be on the front foot and be brave. We need to be brave now.“It’s quarter-finals and the brave will have the luck on their side. And we cannot have any regrets when we play a quarter-final. We have to go for it; this is the most important thing.”Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham celebrate England’s win in Mexico (Yuri Cortez/AFP via Getty Images)All of which leads to the question of whether we will see England’s true identity in Miami against Norway. Tuchel came into this tournament talking about aggressive, physical, proactive football. But in five games so far, how often have we seen it? Arguably only for a sustained spell in the second half against Croatia. Tuchel knows this more than anyone, and is wrestling with the question of what his team’s identity really is.“What we try to do is patterns: we play with high No 10s, we play with wingers, we play on the front foot, we play with inswinging crosses,” he said. “But the determination and team spirit is also an identity. I still think even now that we have to work on the sporting side of things. We need to play better. We struggle too much to overcome a high press of the opponent. And we need to be better in the deep build-up. We need to be better in the high press, more connected.”These are the things that Tuchel is looking for when he says that England need to “connect to their identity” and “let go”.“It is not a matter of investment, not a matter of commitment,” Tuchel said. “We’re a bit stuck in thinking. We are thinking about the pass and then it is already half a second too late, the gap is not there any more. We are a bit over-protecting, over-thinking and we need to get rid of that.”That is the switch that successful club teams make, after the winter grind is replaced by the bountiful spring. Tuchel will hope that as his team switches focus from Mexico to Norway, they can do the same.