Lee Carsley ran into the first problems of his tenure as England's interim coach after a bold team selection backfired in a 2-1 home loss to Greece in the Nations League on Thursday.
After leading England to back-to-back victories since becoming temporary coach after the European Championship, Carsley felt emboldened enough to field a team without a recognized striker in the absence of injured captain Harry Kane.
The lineup looked interesting and exciting on paper but resembled a mess on the field as Greece repeatedly picked off England and got in behind a stretched defense.
Vangelis Pavlidis scored the opener for the visitors at Wembley Stadium in the 49th, Jude Bellingham equalized in the 87th, only for Pavlidis to take advantage of more sloppy defending to grab Greece's winner in the fourth minute of stoppage time.
Greece's players, who also had three goals disallowed in the game, celebrated one of their most famous wins by gathering together and holding up the No. 2 jersey of George Baldock, the Panathinaikos defender who was found dead in his Athens home on Wednesday at age 31. Baldock played 12 matches for Greece and there was a period of silence in tribute to the right back ahead of the game, with players wearing black armbands.
“We gave everything for him,” Pavlidis said in a tribute to Baldock, who he described as a “special guy.”
It was England's first loss to Greece, which is ranked No. 48 in the world ranking, in 10 matches between the teams and deals a major blow to Carsley's hopes of becoming coach of the national team on a permanent basis.
It was meant to be fluid set-up, with in-form Chelsea playmaker Cole Palmer starting a competitive international for the first time for England and deployed in central midfield, with Phil Foden and Bellingham splitting time as the furthest player forward in an attack filled with midfielders.
It didn't work.
“We never really gave ourselves a chance to see whether it was the right decision or wrong,” said Carsley, who insisted it was not an “experiment.”
“With the players we've got, we've got to be courageous at times with our systems and be creative. I thought it was important to try something different. I never at any point thought I've got it cracked. It was a case of, let's try something different."