Lee Carsley's credentials as an England manager for the future will be clearer by Sunday night.
After Thursday's disaster at home to Greece, another bad experience here against Finland would all but destroy his candidacy before his spell as interim coach even reaches its final lap next month.
Regardless of that, the more Carsley talks about the way he sees himself and what it is he values and enjoys, the harder it is to escape the feeling that the 50-year-old may not be the man for the long term after all. The FA now have doubts about his intentions and it's little wonder.
Carsley's abilities as a coach are well known to the FA. Whatever happens in Finland and beyond will not damage that. He is a valuable member of the FA's coaching network, a man of bright ideas and positive instincts.
He does know how to win, too. He took the Under-21s to a tournament they were not fancied to do well in last year and brought them home from Georgia as European champions.
England interim boss Lee Carsley's credentials will be clear by Sunday night after game against Finland
Carsley won his first two games in charge before England lost at home to Greece on Thursday
Carsley, 50, spoke to the media on Saturday when he discussed England's long-term project
Nevertheless, Carsley has continued to talk here in Scandinavia of developing players and laying foundations and improving long-term prospects ahead of a World Cup in 2026 that he feels England should be able to win.
Whether that is the rhetoric of a man cut out to lead the England senior team is open to question. As rudimentary as it sounds, England managers just have to win football games. They are not, by and large, coaches who develop footballers. They don't have time. International management is about picking the right players, providing an environment in which they can thrive and then making tactical and in-game decisions that edge what tend to be tight tournament matches your way.
Carsley's grand plan to play without a centre forward against Greece was, by his own admission, formed on the back of one half-hour training experiment and that strengthens the point. Gareth Southgate's Euro 2024 attempts to play Trent Alexander-Arnold in midfield were similarly undone by a lack of preparation time.
It would be foolish to say that Carsley doesn't know what international football is about. He played 40 times for the Republic of Ireland and has been on the FA's staff since 2020. But questions now hang in the air about whether, deep down, his gut instincts really do point him in the direction of the most high-profile and important job in English football.
For a man to take the England job, he really must want it quite viscerally. Carsley does not. Asked by Mail Sport on Saturday whether he really could afford to ignore the fact that defeats such as Thursday's damage his own prospects, he said: 'I wouldn't say that. That would be reckless. But it's more important than me. I know that you are probably used to people saying something they don't mean but I do mean that this is most important for the team.
'There's probably a reason in the past why I have not got into senior football and managed at club level. Because I really enjoy this side of the game, the player development and the journey they go on. I have tried to remove myself from the emotion of, "It's my job to lose or get".'
Carsley sat next to Crystal Palace defender Marc Guehi (left) at Saturday's press conference
Sunday's game against Finland will be Carsley's fourth fixture as England's interim manager
Harry Kane (right) missed the Greece game with an injury and Carsley lined up without a striker in his team
Carsley's selflessness is impressive. He has already taken some hefty dollops of criticism — some fair and some not — during this three-game stint and hasn't blinked. He is an asset to our football and that strengthens the suspicion — that he appears to share — that he may be better used in a role where his natural and deeply entrenched instincts and qualities can be put to best effect.
As they continue to put Carsley's credentials up against those of an external candidate such as Newcastle's Eddie Howe, the FA must ask not only whether he is the best option for the job but what they may be losing elsewhere in their structure if they were to twist his arm and persuade him to take it.
Carsley said on Saturday that he believes we could be on the verge of a period of dominance similar to that enjoyed by Spain a decade ago. That's a bold claim after Thursday's Grecian horror show but Carsley is convinced of it.
Is he similarly convinced, though, that he is the right man to lead England towards the promised land? It no longer sounds like it and maybe, regardless of what happens on the field between now and the closure of the Nations League in the middle of next month, we should start to listen.