England assistant coach: I believe the team can win the 2026 World Cup. This group of players is tough and has excellent skills.

England assistant coach Anthony Barry explains why he believes England can win the World Cup next summer. Barry praised the character of the Three Lions' players and claimed the England squad had the talent and mental toughness to lift the trophy for the first time since 1966.

Barry and Tuchel are a strong partnership

Barry and Tuchel have collaborated many times before. The former low-level league midfielder has assisted the German at Bayern and Chelsea. When Tuchel agreed to coach the Three Lions, Barry was obviously the best candidate to partner with him.

According to the "Times" report, the FA's technical director John McDermott believes that Barry is a suitable candidate to serve as England's assistant coach. The 39-year-old Barry quickly accepted the position, not only because he can return to his hometown, but also because he is excited about guiding this group of talented players to participate in the next World Cup.

Barry shared his confidence in his players that England, having already secured qualification for the World Cup, can now start to look ahead to becoming World Cup champions next summer.

Barry describes the blueprint for the success of the England team

In an interview with the "Times", Barry said that it is a "huge honor" to be able to cooperate with the England national team, but what really makes him happy is working with this generation of England players. The assistant coach revealed that he and Tuchel had discussed at length in a Munich cafe how to help England win their second World Cup star.

Talking about that meeting, Barry said: "We started to analyze. How is the team lineup? What is our goal? Very quickly we felt that with the level and character of this group of players, we have the ability to achieve this goal. We think there are some very good boys in the team."

"We conducted a 360-degree evaluation of all players, including psychological, technical , tactics and physical fitness, etc., not just considering them as individuals, but considering the chemical reaction between them: what kind of psychological impact one player will have on another player, and whether they can cooperate tactically."

Barry also shared that the England team has psychologists and scoring systems to help coaches measure players' body language, behavior, interaction within the team, and how information is shared. This analysis also allows coaches to understand when additional support is needed for individual players.

Building team spirit is more important than tactics.

Barry believes that creating the right team atmosphere is as important as formulating excellent tactics, or even more critical. Given the limited time the England coaching staff have to work with the players, the assistant manager admits it will be extremely difficult to play as fluidly as Barcelona or Manchester City.

"In international football, you can never build a team that can play like Barcelona in the past or Manchester City in recent times, it is simply impossible." He explained.

"But if you can build a brotherhood, an internal connection, an energy field that fits with each other, then that is the fuel for the team to move forward. When I was working at Chelsea, I could tell by the state of the players when they went out to play for the national team. Who will win? I can see the determination to compete through their eyes."

Preparing for the World Cup Preliminaries

England will next face Serbia and Albania. These two games provide Tuchel's team with the opportunity to continue preparing for the World Cup. However, the Three Lions will have to cope without Gueye, with the centre-back ruled out with a bone bruise in his foot.

In addition, Bellingham returned to the England national team for the first time since recovering from a shoulder injury, and he may strive to return to the starting lineup in these two World Cup qualifiers.