England and Thomas Tuchel need to put down a marker against Spain to make us really believe. A bit like Eric Dier did eight years ago, in another Nations League match, the last time England faced Spain away.

Dier set the tone for that 3-2 win in Seville with a crunching tackle on Spain captain Sergio Ramos when the game was goalless. It captured the mood of what manager Gareth Southgate called the “fearlessness” he wanted from his young team, the youngest to represent England in six decades.

Southgate had just come out of taking England to the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup, dragging them up from the embarrassment of the 2016 European Championship debacle and back towards respectability.

Tuchel has also come out of a World Cup – but this time expectedly taking England to the last four. That the campaign was ultimately deemed a failure by everyone apart from Tuchel and the Football Association shows how far England have come in the intervening years. Until another debacle – in that second half against Argentina.

Now it is about being a finisher. About winning trophies. That is why, whatever revisionism is attempted by talking up finishing third in the world, Tuchel was brought in. That is why beating Croatia – who we subsequently found out were laid low by a virus – 7-0 so impressively in England’s last away game needs to be followed by an even better performance here in Madrid.

If England lose then they will have been beaten home and away in this Nations League group by Spain. Although finishing second to them is no disgrace, gaining no points against them is not good enough. England have already qualified for the quarter-finals but we need more from them if the talk of “Thomas Tuchel 2.0” with a fresh, reenergised team, is to have substance.

Tuchel has decided England are entering a new era as they strive to win the next Euros, but that needs some real impetus by beating the nation which defeated Southgate’s England in the last Euros final.

It is the tallest of orders. But is that not why Tuchel has been hired? Spain, the world and European champions, are undefeated in 43 matches, including those two wins over England, stretching back to March 2024. It is the longest unbeaten streak in world football (although they did lose the final of the last Nations League on penalties, so it could be argued the run is actually only 23).

Of course England could have ended that sequence in September, in the meeting at Wembley, had Harry Kane not missed a penalty that would have given them a 3-1 lead. Even then, though, there was the sense that Spain had gears to go through, which they eventually did to emerge victorious, 3-2.

They will face England this time without Rodri and Dani Olmo, two of the starters in the last World Cup final, but with Lamine Yamal, who is fully fit having joined up with the squad late and missing the win over Czech Republic.

The challenge for England and Tuchel is therefore formidable. But the definition of success in football is not just reaching your potential but performing beyond it.

For a club, that is doing better than your budget dictates. For a country it is maximising the playing resources available and – defence apart – no one can argue that England do not possess the strength to beat the best, led by Ballon d’Or winner Kane.

And elite managers are deemed elite because they can achieve that. So Tuchel has to show us. We want to see more from him tactically and, certainly, in the style of football England play having gone into the last World Cup with the mistaken belief that performing like a Premier League team would do the job.

Tuchel also has that comment – that it is not in England’s “DNA” to control matches through ball possession – hanging around like a bad odour. The German surely regrets saying it in the heat and raw emotion of the semi-final defeat by Argentina. Because he has been employed to overcome such obstacles, if he truly believes they exist, and to coach.

After Sunday night, England do not play again until the last eight of the Nations League in March. There will be relief, already, from the FA and Tuchel that they have negotiated this group without any stress and especially with the remarkable win in Croatia. But England and Tuchel need to show more against the best team in the world. If that is what they truly believe they themselves can be.

“I think we’re there, and we’re ready to win on Sunday,” Tuchel said. “I know what it takes, and no one can guarantee it, but it’s the moment to check how far we are and push our limit.

“We are in a very good moment. And in the best moment to make the seemingly impossible possible. We wanted this match desperately. We thought we were very close to beating them in the first match.

“No team is unbeatable. It’s a very complex performance we need. Spain take the ball away from you and then obviously you cannot score and cannot create against them. This will be a big part of it, to make it even, to take the ball off them and trust in our ability to break them down and make them suffer and create chances.”

Arguably Tuchel has – so far – not taken England any further than they already were. He has certainly not provided evidence that he will “push our limit”. That would change with a performance and win over Spain. So that is how much it matters.

We talk a lot about statements of intent. Winning in Madrid would be one. It is also, whatever he says he wants, exactly what Tuchel needs.