"If you'd asked me when I was out at Darlington in the Conference whether I'd be here, I probably would have said 'no'" — that's Dan Burn, 34 years old, 2.01 metres tall, standing at England's World Cup base in Kansas City. Not exactly the career arc the scouts were drawing up.
Burn spent years grinding through the lower divisions and non-league football before Brighton gave him a Premier League lifeline. Newcastle signed him in 2022. His first England cap came last year. And now he's in Thomas Tuchel's 26-man squad at the biggest tournament on the planet. The timeline is genuinely strange in the best way.
Croatia first, everything else second
England open Group L against Croatia next Wednesday in Arlington, Texas — a fixture that carries real weight. Croatia were finalists in 2018, third-place finishers in Qatar. They know how to win knockout football. Burn didn't sugarcoat it: "That's probably, on paper, the toughest game."
Ghana and Panama also occupy Group L, and England should be expected to progress. But Croatia is the game that sets the tone, and anyone pricing England's group-stage odds should factor in just how clinical Modric's generation remains at tournament level — even at the tail end of that golden era.
Burn himself will likely rotate in and out depending on Tuchel's defensive setup. His value isn't just aerial ability from set pieces, though at 6ft 7ins that's a genuine threat both ways. He's talked about helping "close out games" — the kind of late-game defensive insurance a squad player at a World Cup needs to offer.
The squad dynamic Tuchel is building
What's easy to miss in the Burn story is what it signals about the camp atmosphere. He made a point of saying the squad is moving past surface-level small talk — "really taking the time to get to know each other on a deeper level." That might sound like PR fluff, but cohesion at tournaments matters, and England have historically crumbled under internal pressure as much as external.
Tuchel sat back during training at Swope Soccer Village while the players worked in stifling heat. Whether that reflects trust in his staff or a deliberate effort to let the group breathe before the serious work begins, the mood sounds looser than England camps have often felt.
"Everything's brand new to me. It's a first for everything," said Burn. At 34, at a World Cup, having once played non-league football — that's not an exaggeration.
