Like the kid who returns from his first holiday in Spain declaring his desire to live there one day, Anthony Gordon is full of Hispanic immersion.

We can understand his awed appreciation of the Spanish way. I mean, who doesn’t love a stroll down Las Ramblas on a sunny afternoon? But let’s not get carried away that England can never be them.

Gordon is not intentionally running England down, of course, yet in elevating Spain to their own higher plain, he is reinforcing the inferiority that has held back the mother country since 1966.

“I’m speaking from a point of view where I feel like we are trying to replicate Spain. It’s not in the English DNA. I’m not sure it’s something that can be taught because now I think, playing in Spain, I can speak with an educated view on the way they keep the ball is different,” Gordon said ahead of his first England engagement since joining Barcelona in the summer.

“I even look at some of the decisions they take on the ball sometimes and think, I’m not sure how you’ve seen that. It’s the way they’re built. I don’t know whether it is something that maybe we can’t ever put a name to, but they’re definitely built different.”

Though the world champions have no need of an esteem hike so soon after their summer coronation, if I’m Spanish coach Luis de la Fuente, I’m pinning that quote on the dressing room door at Wembley just to ensure an uncomplicated night.

Framing this as a DNA issue is not only false; it cuts off any possibility of change. England failed at the World Cup not as a result of immutable technical properties given to us at birth. England folded because the coach lost his nerve in a tense contest, and the players absorbed the message, sowing confusion and ultimately chaos.

Gordon is closer to the truth with his take on the team’s own response to Argentina’s dark arts. “As players, we could have done more to take the initiative to control the game. I think if we do that, the manager doesn’t make the decision [to change the system],” he added.

“For me, we had the best team, we had the best players on the pitch, and in the last 20 minutes we didn’t play the best football. That’s something the manager can’t really affect from the sideline, so I think as a group everyone together should take responsibility.”

Yes, and that comes from the experience of winning important matches at major competitions, and a rock-solid belief in the qualities and attributes you have. The mistake Gordon makes is to set these in stone, which makes impossible a capacity to adapt according to circumstance.

“We can’t keep looking at other countries and trying to be like them, because we’re not them,” he said. “We’re English and we have our own strengths, which they don’t have, so maybe we start playing the way we’re good at.”

But what way is that, Anthony?

The Premier League is not the England of big lads up front playing 1970s ball, mowing down defenders. We are the England of Pep Guardiola, of Mikel Arteta, of Jurgen Klopp, Fabian Hurzeler and Unai Emery, a melting pot of systems and ideas.

Spain are a fabulous team playing a familiar system, but none of it is inevitable. It is the result of choices made, choices that are available to any. The Spain way is to win games. All this philosophical stuff wrapped up in DNA becomes a mental block, which signals the retreat in big matches.

Even the mighty French, the team that lit up the World Cup with their own vibrant expression of the beautiful game, shrank before the idea of Spain before stepping on the grass.

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Gordon observed how England looked mustard in training. Great. Clear your heads and take that feeling onto the pitch. Once across the white line, it’s less about systems and more about mentality.

Spain believe themselves superior, and the oppo tacitly agrees. Let England be that team on Saturday at Wembley.

Whatever Gordon wants Englishness to be, it won’t succeed without trust and desire. Those, above all else, are the qualities that decide matches at this level and the ones Spain have made their own.