Thomas Tuchel remains confident that England can compete with the very best in international football after watching the Nations League final on Sunday. 

Portugal lifted their second title with a penalty shootout victory over defending champions Spain, with Diogo Costa proving to be the hero for Roberto Martinez's side. 

Martin Zubimendi had his opening goal cancelled out by Nuno Mendes before Mikel Oyarzabal restored Spain's advantage on the stroke of half-time with a fine finish. 

Portugal hauled themselves level once again through Cristiano Ronaldo's 138th goal for his country, with spot-kicks deciding who would be crowned champions. 

After three perfect penalties from each team, Mendes picked out the top corner before Alvaro Morata had his penalty saved by Costa, allowing Ruben Neves to seal the win. 

Ahead of facing Senegal in a friendly on Tuesday, Tuchel and his players sat down to watch that game and admitted those sides have set the benchmark for his squad ahead of next summer's World Cup.

"It was a high level in the final," said Tuchel. "High-quality football. The first 45 minutes were excellent. Then I could see the players get tired and the level drop a little bit.

"Portugal won. Congratulations to Roberto [Martinez] and his team. They have another title. We hope to compete in the final four next time.

"That's the standard, that's the benchmark. We will try to hunt that, to reach that, and I'm convinced we have everything it takes to match that when we play these teams. Even if it didn't look like that on Saturday between 6pm and 8pm!

"In general, I'm convinced we have what it takes to compete on that level."

In contrast, England limped to a 1-0 victory over Andorra in a World Cup qualifier just 24 hours before the Nations League final, with Harry Kane scoring the only goal of the game.

Despite the win, which saw England win five consecutive games without conceding for the first time since May 1982, Tuchel slammed his players' attitude in the second half. 

England were booed off by a section of the 7,000-strong travelling support at both half-time and full-time, despite the Three Lions maintaining their perfect start under Tuchel. 

And the German manager insisted he would not "sugarcoat" his public assessments of performances after making his feelings known in Munich on Saturday. 

"I protect my players. I said no names of players and it is not an individual matter. But we as a team, we simply did not match our own standards," Tuchel said. 

"I did not like the last 10 minutes because I felt on the sideline we didn't play seriously enough, like what we needed to do in a World Cup qualifier.

"What I have told you I have already told the team directly. There are no messages that I give via a press conference. Everything I say here, I already said to the players.

"Why should we sugarcoat it? You have been in the stadium, why should I tell you that we had a good game and we are happy with what we did if we are not happy? No harm done. We can handle criticism.

"It is always a 'we' message we try to give. Now it's on us to do better. The attitude towards training, the attitude in camp, the commitment from the players, was outstanding.

"Everybody wanted to be there, everybody wanted to be involved, everybody wanted to start and to play in this game. We then got a little bit stuck. We take our analysis from this and try to do better, of course."