World Cup 2018: Now Gareth Southgate’s England must deliver on bold intentions and flickers of promise

But will any of this actually work? Are England actually any good? Those two questions will barge to the front row of the national mind on Monday afternoon and stay there until they are answered.

Everything that Gareth Southgate and his team have said and done so far has been popular. He has generated more goodwill than anyone could have expected, two years on from Iceland and the Allardyce interregnum.

But as England descend on Volgograd today they do so in almost total ignorance of the biggest questions of all. Not least about Southgate himself, so adept at so many parts of his job, so untested in this one.

Southgate knows that the hardest part of his job, and the most important one, is to coach the team to play well. That might sound obvious but it rarely gets as much attention as the things we now know he can do. And when it comes to assessing Southgate’s own coaching, peeling back the screen to see how it all works underneath, none of us have any idea yet.

Because what do we have to go on? Southgate steered the team safely through a qualification campaign in which they were never tested, but then they never are. And in which he only ever had the players for a few days at a time, with little scope at first to mark the squad as his own.

Over the last few months Southgate says his ideas have become clearer in the play, and England have played better in friendlies against stronger opposition. Clean sheets against Germany and Brazil. Beating the worst Dutch team in 50 years. A draw with Italy. Just before the World Cup, a lively first half against Nigeria. A more complete showing against Costa Rica. Flickers of promise, certainly. “We seem to be improving every time,” Southgate said in his press conference last night. “The patterns of playing are becoming more apparent. I like the movement and the way we’re moving the ball.”

But ultimately there is nothing to tell us what to expect over the next 10 days and, if things go well, beyond that. Because tournaments are different. And however well England expect to do going into one, they almost always do worse. The reason why Italia ‘90 and Euro 96 have this elevated place in our consciousness is not just because England reached the semi-finals. But because they did better than expected, for only times in the lifetimes of many England fans.

The last time England played in a tournament, remember, was Iceland, the worst tournament performance in their history. Yes, the manager has changed twice since then, many of the players have changed too, the captain, the formation, the kit, the messaging, the ethos. Southgate was very clear last night that he wants this to be seen as a new start.

“You learn from the past, but this team shouldn’t be burdened with it,” Southgate said. “They’re a fresh group, the future is all ahead of them. This team are looking at things in a different way, trying to play in a different way.”

But there is no easier way to deal with disaster than to pretend it was caused by things you can easily fix. Iceland was deeper-rooted than anyone wants to acknowledge. It was not an accident or a fluke. That was why it hurt so much.

So what’s changed? England have been out-foxed by canny technical teams like Tunisia for generations. Will they be cleverer this time and avoid getting caught in their traps? Then, Panama in Nizhny Novgorod on Sunday. England have never liked breaking down hard-working lesser sides – they are neither patient nor imaginative enough for it – just look at Iceland, Slovakia, Costa Rica or Algeria. Will they be able to find a way through?

And then Belgium, a team with better players than England, as proven in the Premier League every week. They have their own problems but England have not beaten a good team in a tournament since Argentina in 2002.

All we really have from Southgate, if not a body of testable work, is his bold intentions. Spend any time in the England camp and the one word you hear most is ‘freedom’, from the players and from Southgate himself. Last night Southgate said both himself and the players want to see a “bold and attacking” England team, who play “brave football”. The formation – two forwards and two attacking midfielders – is proof of that. Under Capello and Hodgson England went into World Cups shut down by fear. Southgate wants to open them up.

Which is admirable, of course, but it does feel as if Southgate might be swimming against the tide of the international game. Because the most success teams in the last few tournaments have not been those who play with expansive ambition, but those who play without it. Look at the Portugal side who won Euro 2016. Or the over-achievement of Iceland. Or Iran 1-0 Morocco on Friday. Or, going back, Greece at Euro 2004. Have you ever seen anyone play with less freedom than them?

Winning on the front foot is a nobler goal, but it is also much harder. It requires better players and better coaches. Teaching complex attacking patterns, only for a few days every few months, has to be a long-term process. Spain did it because they were built around Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona – not a bad model – so the movements were already ingrained. And when Germany won the World Cup in 2014, it was 10 years since Joachim Loew first started coaching the national team, working for two years under Jurgen Klinsmann before taking over himself. No wonder it clicked in the end.

Maybe Southgate will be England’s Loew, a man whose modest early coaching career gives way to sustained progress, good football and eventual success with the national team. But maybe he won’t. None of us know where this is heading, as Southgate takes his first hopeful step into the dark.