16 Conclusions on England 1-2 Argentina: Tuchel sack, ‘no regrets’ and a Southgate World Cup semi exit | OneFootball

If Thomas Tuchel is to be given one more tournament with this England squad, he must win it or leave. That was a cowardly surrender against Argentina.

Pep Guardiola is waiting in the wings after all. Oh, and do check out our player ratings.

1) “If we lose, we lose, we lose in our way.”

England, in the infuriating, heartbreaking aftermath of an avoidable but inevitable World Cup exit, will always have half-time of the opening Croatia win.

The tournament-fresh lack of expectation. The stirring Anthony Barry public address. The Thomas Tuchel dressing-room speech, as relayed after the game by Harry Kane following a rousing second half, which will forever remain England’s best all summer.

Tuchel himself corroborated that story. “I wanted them to do it our way,” he said of his frustration at a self-injurious first half. “Be brave, courageous, intense and on the front foot and just go for it. Just be active. That was the main message to encourage them and tell them that we trusted them.”

In the end, England did not trust themselves. The players, the manager, the coaches, all abandoned their elite pretences at the very moment they ought to have emphasised their superiority over a vulnerable opponent.

They were not brave, courageous or intense. They fell not on their sword but on their arses, retreating so absurdly far at such an unnecessary time as to render any attempts to regain their footing entirely doomed.

Argentina reached their second consecutive World Cup final, but England knocked themselves out. And while there was a sense of familiarity to the eventual despair, the most galling aspect was how they turned their backs so timidly on that “if we lose, we lose, we lose in our way” mantra.

That was arguably too England of a way to lose, but this team, this manager, this England was supposed to be different. Gareth Southgate will have watched that and thought they sat too deep, too early.

2) That is pertinent, because Tuchel was brought in with a specific remit to address the perceived shortcomings of his predecessor.

“We will build on everything that Gareth built and hopefully we can add a bit extra to get over the line,” he said upon an appointment FA CEO Mark Bullingham made with “a single-minded focus on giving us the best possible chance to win the World Cup in 2026”.

Southgate had taken England this far. To two finals even, as well as semi and quarter-finals. But he had been here and failed almost parodically so, to the point of them leading in a World Cup semi-final before a slow but always certain and agonising death. And that was a mentally weaker, technically worse England eight years ago, against an arguably better team than this Argentina side.

Tuchel, the man brought in to “add a bit extra to get over the line”, surrendered behind it just as brazenly as Southgate at his worst when the pressure told.

A World Cup semi-final defeat shouldn’t be a sackable or walkable offence, yet the cowardly nature of this one does at least raise the question as to whether Tuchel should be given another tournament with this group.

3) There is little doubt, however, as to whether he should f*** entirely off for insisting he had “no regrets” about how the game went, adding:

England did. Then they tripped over their own shoelaces in the rush to give Lionel Messi enough space to operate in for as long as possible, largely unopposed in their own half.

You cannot lead a game for half an hour, end it with Kane, Ivan Toney and Dan Burn up front, Ezri Konsa putting in crosses and Nico O’Reilly in midfield, and have “no regrets”.

And it’s not “easy to say my decisions were wrong after the defeat” when everyone was saying it during. The level of coaching self-sabotage was ludicrous and it didn’t require hindsight to see.

4) England will, equally, always have those otherworldly two-and-a-half minutes in which anything and everything seemed possible.

The intoxicating combination of Anthony Gordon’s goal and that Djed Spence last-man tackle represented a genuine generational peak of England fandom, an instant exorcism of six decades’ worth of embarrassment and suffering, a moment in which we did still believe. Not necessarily that football was coming home, but simply that it actually could.

How Tuchel and his players immediately channelled that energy into such a passive, fearful subsequent 40 minutes with the most predictable of endings is a maddening mystery.

5) Perhaps part of the disappointment lies in how well England acquitted themselves in the first half. The opening stages featured more needle than a cactus embroidery, with skulduggery including but not limited to: forearms in the back of the head; balls being kicked away at free-kicks; balls being rolled onto the pitch to stop quick throw-ins; and Leandro Paredes suggesting to the referee that Kane should be sent off for covering his mouth while talking to said referee.

It was engrossing viewing, thankfully not at any stage erroneously described as Like A Chess Match, with the 33-minute wait for a shot of any kind the longest in recorded World Cup history.

Yet Elliot Anderson did not react, and Jude Bellingham never retaliated (during the game). England gave as good as they got, their defence against the dark arts maybe even enough to earn a second year on the staff at Hogwarts.

The dread fear was that someone would completely David Beckham themselves – a concern not helped by the presence of a sh*thouse Simeone – but England avoided that trap expertly.

6) Simeone avoiding a booking for his five fouls, all of which came in the first half an hour, the last being followed up by him blocking the taking of the free-kick and having to endure a stern speaking to by the referee, was genuinely one of the game’s most impressive feats.

England really do need to look into stopping that male bloodline at some point, though, because the amount of psychological World Cup distress inflicted by Simeones is not healthy.

For a limited, relatively poor player, Giuliano is a mightily effective wind-up merchant who must make Diego preposterously proud.

7) England ignoring those regular provocations while ensuring not to be intimidated or bullied by Argentina essentially became the successful first-half gameplan from early on.

Barry then emerged to note that “we wanted to be the aggressor, we wanted to get after them, we wanted to show our players that there was no inferiority complex”.

It seemed a strange point to make at the time, even more so now. The idea England would have an “inferiority complex” in a World Cup semi-final – and that their pre-match preparations would focus on them not having one – felt ridiculous, yet the way they approached the game after taking the lead proved they absolutely did, do and might always.

8) The goal, much like Kieran Trippier’s, Luke Shaw’s and Cole Palmer’s before it at this stage of tournaments past, was constructed wonderfully and dispatched expertly.

Kane dropped deep and looked for Morgan Rogers with a ball over the top that Nicolas Tagliafico could only clear to Declan Rice. The Arsenal midfielder immediately recycled possession to Rogers, whose sumptuous cross was met with a first-time Gordon finish after some exceptional movement.

That England produce moments of such glorious individual and team quality in each of these high-stake games is galling. It’s worse than not even showing up at all like France in the other semi-final.

It’s the hope that kills you, and five of England’s last six major tournament exits coming in 2-1 defeats – the exception being the Euro 2021 final shoot-out – makes for particularly difficult periods of national mourning.

9) In the 37 minutes between that Gordon goal and Argentina taking the lead in stoppage time, England had 12 per cent of the ball and completed 18 passes in the opposition half. That is pathetic.

10) If the switch to desperate defending for the rest of the match was almost definitely fuelled by how well it went against Mexico, perhaps the baffling mid-game changes here were a fitting tribute to the quarter-final win over Norway.

Except England were a man down against Mexico at the Azteca. Argentina had no such advantage and were chasing the game.

So when England came back from the second-half hydration break, it was with Konsa in the place of Gordon. Yet Tuchel neutered his side with that shift to a back five, sacrificing speed, an outlet and any semblance of a counter-attacking threat to gamble on a half-hour low block.

In the 82nd minute he quadrupled down, throwing Burn and O’Reilly on with ten remaining as England set up camp in their own area.

Argentina had a more effective plan than simply lumping balls up towards Raul Jimenez; they also had the greatest player in the history of the sport, suddenly gifted acres of space to manoeuvre in, having struggled for the opportunity beforehand.

Lionel Scaloni’s substitutions maintained a pressure England could not handle, including the introduction of Lautaro Martinez to score the winner.

Tuchel’s screwed England over, leaving them with six defenders on the pitch at the point they were inevitably drawn level and then fell behind, with the team’s structure irrevocably broken.

For all the talk of “mentality” during this World Cup, England and their manager had a small-time one from the moment they took the lead.

11) They genuinely had two attacks of memorable note at 1-0 up: tame Kane and Rice shots from range, the first blocked and the other saved, before Rogers made the wrong choice at a counter with Kane and Bellingham in support.

No other team-mate ventured beyond 10 yards of the halfway line at most on that tired, tentative surge forwards. And Argentina were absolutely there for the taking. Egypt retained more of a threat when ahead against the world champions, and Cape Verde had three times as many shots against them as England mustered.

12) But Tuchel’s side had been defending phenomenally. Marc Guehi and John Stones had strong performances, Reece James was solid and Spence was outstanding, save for a couple of jitters early in the second half.

The changes meant England relinquished any and all attacking inclinations, but it arguably had a greater impact on what was a settled defensive unit that knew which spaces each component was responsible for and which players to pick up.

Putting more players in those areas only caused confusion. England had as many shots as they conceded between the goal and the hydration break, then one to eight thereafter, although both were harbingers of doom: an Enzo Fernandez effort from outside the area, and a Nico Gonzalez header that Jordan Pickford saved well.

13) The sense that momentum had shifted was captured when Pickford followed that excellent Gonzalez save up with the nationally recognised symbol of asking if someone wants another pint.

The England keeper was simply signalling that the hydration break was due, having done the exact same thing after a save in the first half. But most fans will have taken him up on the offer at that point.

14) Not sure Cristian Romero has ever Cristian Romero’d harder than when he adroitly evaded a Gordon and Bellingham press with some nifty footwork in his own area, before next being spotted hilariously out of position on the halfway line, hugging Bellingham to stop a counter and take a booking.

Not sure enough is made of how Spurs should definitely sell their potential consecutive World Cup-winning captain either.

15) Romero raced over to goad a prone Pickford after Fernandez’s equaliser. Such opprobrium should have been reserved for the outfielders who gave the Chelsea player the space to shoot.

The first Argentina goal, a Fernandez strike from range with no England player close enough to close down, came from a telegraphed short corner won when Fernandez, with no England player close enough to close him down, struck from range and forced Pickford to tip over.

The second Argentina goal, a Lautaro Martinez header not far from under the bar from a sublime Messi cross, came in the panicked moments after Alexis Mac Allister hit the post for a second time, this one from a drilled shot after drifting into space on the edge of the area.

England set up shop in the box, so Argentina started to think outside it and identify those pockets of space. Messi in particular thrived there and started to run the game effortlessly to drag his team into another final.

16) “They were more afraid to drop out of the tournament in my observation than having the excitement and hunger to win,” was how Tuchel characterised England after their defeat to Spain in the Euro 2024 final.

He was inhibited more than anyone by that same fear here. Without the goodwill, the patience or the inextricable ties to a national team he helped rebuild from the ground up, and with his status as a world-class, expensive manager, Tuchel will not receive the same backing as Southgate. He will, as a current minimum and maximum, get Euro 2028.

And while the instinct should be never to indulge in setting the bar so singularly stupidly high, Tuchel has to win that tournament or leave. Home advantage, against only the continent’s best, with ample tournament and squad lessons learned from these past few weeks, leaves zero excuses for a manager hired to “add a bit extra to get over the line”.