The moment of the night in Athens came on 82 minutes, with England’s young team romping about the place like cosseted schoolboys, all jinky little twirls and prim one-touch keep-ball. On the right wing Morgan Gibbs-White, once of Lee Carsley’s under-21s, flicked the ball inside towards the white shirts in the centre. The closest of them was Curtis Jones, also once of Lee Carsley’s under-21s, who did something entirely in keeping with his almost laughably unhurried performance all night, letting the ball run past him, then producing a perfectly pinged instep drag-flick into the far corner.

It made the score 3-0, the final significant act of England’s penultimate outing under an interim manager who has, it turns out, something of the avenger about him, the quiet revolutionary, a Martin Luther in overly tight lycra tracksuit bottoms.

With the benefit of a decent run now, it really is a shame Carsley isn’t getting this job. He’s frisky. He’s quietly punkish. He makes weird, ballsy calls. Yes, the Wembley game against Greece was a total disaster, a man trying to make an omelette out of Smarties, marshmallows, Tic-Tacs and a sprinkle of icing sugar. But looking back, it came from a good place. Unleash, Lee. Just maybe don’t unleash quite so much.

Is it too late? Do we need to call Thomas and have a really long chat? Ninety per cent of life is turning up. Lee Carsley turns up. Lee Carsley is, it turns out, unafraid.

And whatever his arc from here this was Carsley redux. This was Lee’s game. England were in control for almost the whole night against a mediocre Greece. Best of all, when they were good they were good in a very Carsley way.

Over 90 minutes they fielded seven players with experience of the Carsley age group processor. They all looked well briefed, sure of their roles, a Carsley army of upright, technically sound ball-players who like to have the ball and pass to each other.

This is not to say England looked like World Cup winners, or that Carsley is some kind of emergent 50-something tyro genius. It was just an England team that felt good, looked like it recognised itself, that had a shared vibe. And for all the agony and the war, the betrayal of Albion stuff that must naturally follow, this does seem to be the point of representative football.

England’s interim manager has had a bruising time, has had to suck it down and smile and talk in weird, hedged sentences. But Carsley has clearly decided to go out being Carsley. He did so by doing something that was beyond Gareth Southgate.

This was of course Carsley’s Gambit: the Kane mutiny. Harry Kane has never been dropped before. Why not? Has he never played badly? Has the team never needed a different kind of thrust? The thing is, star players don’t get dropped in English sport. They hang on, grandly, growing slower and sadder. There are notions of status, heft, barrack room lines.

It is, of course, senseless. To pick Ollie Watkins ahead of Kane is not to say Ollie Watkins is better than Harry Kane. It is simply a tactical change, a different energy in the matrix, new movements that affect every other part. Football is maths, systems, combinations, not a race to see who is most famous. Plus it made all kinds of sense if you watched England in the summer, when Kane was so immobile, a man wading through a portable highland peat bog in rain-sodden Ugg boots.

Still, though, dropping Kane felt doubly brave in the context of England’s week. There was a sense beforehand of tremors in the force. Fractures in the camp. Player pull-outs. A degree of pre-emptive distrust so profound Thomas Tuchel has basically already been fired for the crime of his birth.

Even the Olympic Stadium seemed to speak to this dynamic, a beautifully old school brutalist megalith, with scrolling beige seats, a vast swooping tubular 1970s starship roof, watery yellow lights and, best of all, a gratuitously vast running track.

This kind of place just carries that old baffled white shirt energy, the talk of “difficult” conditions, sweaty and tearful defeat. In those pre-match moments dropping Kane seemed a huge gamble for a must-win game, albeit an admirably egotistical call on Carsley’s part, a sod this kind of selection. I’ve got to be free, I’ve got to be me, I’ve got to be Lee.

It worked instantly as Watkins scored with his first touch. It was made by another Carsley-issue player, Noni Madueke, who made a fine driving run down the right and rolled out the perfect pull-back.

In that period Madueke was really good, a fearless, upright runner, direct in all his movements. Jones was excellent all night, perfect for this kind of football because he likes the ball, skips about with his head up and actually enjoys passing and moving.

Jude Bellingham played with real authority and essentially scored the second with a lovely run and shot that ended up an own goal off the back of the Greece goalkeeper. Conor Gallagher bounced about like the kind of fond, excitable Labrador who just can’t help knocking over the tea things.

England are now in a sound position to achieve promotion from Nations League Group B. But this also felt like a moment of clarity, and of vindication even, for a man who looked here like he might just have been quite a lot of fun in the job.

Harry Kane's Demise?

Maybe everything we thought we knew about Lee Carsley was wrong.

When Carsley was put in interim charge of England in August, he said that he saw himself as a “safe pair of hands”. During his first international camp in September, he twice repeated those words, and it felt like his great strength would be offering calm continuity during a transitional time.

But Carsley is not a safe pair of hands. He is a gambler. When England played Greece at Wembley in October, he gambled with an experimental strikerless team. England — and Carsley — lost big. It was the result that may still define him. But Carsley never apologised for experimenting; he never resiled from the calls he made that day.

And when England came here to Athens, Carsley decided to follow up his first loss with an even riskier bet for an even bigger stake. Carsley would either win it all back or lose everything. If the cards fell the wrong way at the Olympic Stadium, then the whole Carsley mini-era would be written off as a farce, and Carsley himself as a man so out of his depth, trying so hard to innovate, that he forgot what he was actually meant to be doing.

Because Carsley was gambling with more than just his own reputation when he picked his team for Athens. He was gambling with Harry Kane’s status, too.

Carsley took one of the bravest selection decisions made by any England manager in living memory when he decided to bench Kane for Thursday night’s game. Kane is more than just the England captain. More than just the all-time record goalscorer. More than just the best and most consistent player over the last seven or eight years. Kane is synonymous with this England era. He is almost bigger than the team itself.

And Carsley decided to do without him for this, a must-win-by-two-clear-goals game, away from home, against a team who had turned England over only last month. It looked like a match tailor-made for Kane to start, set the tempo, hold onto the ball, try to find a route to goal, then try to find another.

It was even braver given all of England’s other experienced attacking players — Jack Grealish, Phil Foden, Cole Palmer, Bukayo Saka — were not here in Greece to be chosen. Kane himself had spoken about it this week. With Anthony Gordon and Noni Madueke out wide, the pull of playing Kane felt gravitational. And yet Carsley ignored it and went for the mobility and speed of Ollie Watkins instead.

It is no secret that Kane wants to play every game. Gareth Southgate used to joke about it when he was brave enough to bench Kane for qualifiers against Andorra and San Marino. Carsley said on Thursday night that Kane was “absolutely fine” with his demotion to the bench. But multiple sources familiar with the situation, and granted anonymity to protect relationships, have told The Athletic that he was unhappy with the decision.

Kyle Walker, standing in as captain for the night, did not sound thrilled with the choice in his pre-match TV interview. “Obviously, you turn up and you expect ‘H’ to be playing,” he told ITV. “But the manager’s made a decision, and we have to stick by that.”

It was slightly surreal to see Kane warming up with the rest of the substitutes before kick-off, then not part of the line of players on the pitch singing the national anthem. Kane’s role has slightly changed this year, with Southgate never afraid to take him off at the Euros. He was not there for the climax of many of England’s knockout games in Germany. But not having him there from the start feels different.

It did not take Watkins long to make the case for himself as he put England ahead after just seven minutes. In truth it was the type of goal, finding space and turning in a crowded box, of which Kane has scored dozens over the years. And when Watkins had the opportunity to score a goal that only he could score, racing onto Rico Lewis’ pass at the end of the first half, he lost control of the ball.

This was not Watkins at his electric best, and when he was replaced by Kane in the second half it felt like the gamble would fail. Greece were on top, England could not keep hold of the ball and 1-1 felt likelier than 2-0. But the substitutions changed the flow of the game and two late goals gave England more than they needed to return to the top of the group.

New Breed of English Footballers

Kane was first over to the travelling away fans in the corner of the stadium.

He will start against the Republic of Ireland at Wembley on Sunday. Carsley said that Kane understood the importance of other players — like Watkins — sharing these big-game experiences. And maybe Thomas Tuchel will benefit in the United States, Canada and Mexico in 2026 from the fact Watkins has started a game like this. He will likely benefit, too, from the fact England can avoid a Nations League play-off in March if they win on Sunday.

But Tuchel will eventually have to wrestle with the Kane question, too. This was a question Southgate tried not to confront, continuing to start Kane at the Euros even when the evidence in front of our eyes pointed to Watkins. It is no secret to the England players, either, with many of them well aware Kane has not played well for England for a while.

It would have been far easier, given everything, for Carsley to take the Southgate approach: Kane from the start, Watkins later on. Especially here in Athens, under pressure, without so many key players, and with his last big gamble having failed.

But instead Carsley took the opposite approach, betting his own reputation on a policy no one expected. It worked, and Carsley won. We will learn in 2025 whether Tuchel can be as brave as that, too.

The Future of England Football

Curtis Jones has gone up a gear at Liverpool under Arne Slot and he took that form into his England debut - making a case to be included alongside must-pick midfielders Declan Rice and Jude Bellingham when Thomas Tuchel takes the reins in March.

Lee Carsley knows about Jones' quality from the U21s but this was an exhibition of his all-round talents in a tough arena with the pressure on. There was the calmness and precision in possession, the physicality to land a game-high four tackles, and then the technical ability and flair to flick in that wonderful third goal for England.

There may have been a huge number of players pull out of this England squad but Jones seized his opportunity. He's become an important first-team figure with his club and he clearly has the potential to become that for his country, too.

In truth, 3-0 flatters England somewhat. It might have been very different, had Jordan Pickford not made two world-class saves when the game was still very much in the balance.

It wasn't just his ability to react instinctively to those two efforts from Kostas Tsimikas and Fotis Ioannidis. He was perplexed when booked inside 27 minutes for delaying the restart, but Pickford kept his composure.

It was his decision-making at set-pieces, getting clean contact on punches, and his distribution from back to front when the time was right. Back in the XI after Dean Henderson got the nod in Finland, his status as England's No 1 has never truly been in any doubt but he returned to his best form in Athens.

Already boasting his country's goalkeeping record for major tournament clean sheets, penalty saves, shoot-out wins and consecutive tournament starts, it is time we started debating whether Pickford is in fact England's greatest ever goalkeeper.

“It was about players getting an opportunity and we saw that tonight,” Carsley said to ITV after the win.

However, despite scoring early on, Watkins likely did not do enough to convince new boss Thomas Tuchel that he was deserving of a regular role as the starting striker.

The early goal was Watkins at his very best. Instinctive finishing inside the area but his promise throughout the game quickly dispersed.

“Ollie Watkins got his goal, but it is still mystifying why Carsley decided to bench Kane from the start. Harry Kane would've tapped home Noni Madueke's cross on seven minutes for sure, just as Watkins did, and the Villa man struggled to make any impact after that. “

He had a golden opportunity to double England's lead just before half-time but was left frustrated by his first touch, as was the case for the majority of his remaining minutes.

After being replaced by Kane just after the hour mark, England quickly shifted through the gears and made it 3-0.

With Tuchel undoubtedly watching on from home, it was clear to see that England looked a more threatening outfit with their star-man on the field.

Watkins will play a role in the England squad but for now, leading the line is still Kane's job to lose.

This was Noni Madueke's first start for England, just reward for his displays under Enzo Maresca for Chelsea this term - and the 22-year-old was arguably the best player during the first half.

The most pleasing aspect of his role in Watkins' opener was how he didn't admire his Cruyff flick into the path of Bellingham; he followed his run to collect the return pass and carefully set up the striker for a simple finish.

It was superb wing-play and Madueke has all the attributes to shine at international level. There is still room for improvement defensively, with Tsimikas running off him to have one of Greece's better chances, but Madueke's bristling confidence and intelligence bodes well for the future.

He created more chances than anyone in the match (3) while no player had more touches in the opposition box (5).

Bukayo Saka has at times looked a man in need of cover at club level when his body has been at breaking point, but with Cole Palmer adapting to a more central role, it is Madueke who emerging as England's best back-up option on the right.

England's golden boy has struggled to replicate the feats of his first season at Real Madrid this term, but there are signs he is getting back into the groove.

Belatedly off the mark for the campaign after scoring last weekend against Osasuna, all eyes were on if Bellingham would put his streak of bad luck behind him. Carsley was without several senior players in Athens, and here it looked like the midfielder relished the extra responsibility.

He claimed a pre-assist for Watkins' opener and it was evident that his youthful partnership with Noni Madueke worked through the way England dominated the right channel in the first 20 minutes.

This match proved that Bellingham should never be doubted when it comes to his country and ultimately, England play better when he is in the side.

Speaking to ITV afterwards, he said: “We are a young team. We are all playing very well for our clubs are all exciting players and want to get on the ball to be creative, so we are going to lose the ball.

“So it was amazing no matter how many times we lost it, we kept on doing it, which was the most important thing in the end - perseverance.”

A quality that Bellingham embodies.