For England under the age of 21 and Baas Lee Carsley, the time to experiment is now over. The next time this group comes together to play for a crowd, they will be in Slovakia to start their defense of the European championship.
This has been a useful camp for Carsley and its staff, a camp that ended with a satisfactory 4-2 victory in Portugal, with two looking at how a rear three works for this group.
They have succeeded in viewing young people such as Jowe Bellingham and Archie Gray, while Ethan Nwaneri, a goal scorer at night, received his full debut. It is still to be seen how long he will be at this level, keeping an eye on the senior team.
Carsley made 11 changes on the side that started in Lorient with Jarrad Branthwaite Captining as part of a new look back three in which Charlie Cresswell and Gray were also.
And it was the defense of England that was first taken into action with Tiago Tomas and Fabio Silva, both Smart Saves from James Beadle forcing within five minutes.
As soon as England decided, this looked like a form that can be useful for Carsley, should he choose to be fat and hold in the summer.
They were ahead seven minutes when an awkward film on the edge of his own box fell through Eduardo Quaresma to Hayden Hackney who shifted the ball on his right foot before he broke in the corner.
Three minutes later, those rotating Portuguese heads faltered once more when they walked Nwaneri fool, so he could stand up before he sat in and ended with Aplomb.
That would be the green light for England to take the game away from Portugal, just not them and they might be lucky that they walked ahead.
Silva halved the shortage for 23 minutes when the right-wing cross of Rodrigo Pinheiro was missed by everyone in white and it should have been 2-2 when Gustavo Sa Sa took off to shoot on the pole. A missed handball call on Hackney did little to calm the frustrations of the visitors.
Unlike in France, this was not the humdinger that can suggest the score, despite the fact that Omari Hutchinson and Jaden Philogen score on both sides of a Carlos Borges -Finish, and perhaps Carsley will not mind. Because it is consistency and control that will see them defending the euros, not chaos.
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