Why did Thomas Tuchel take Kobbie Mainoo to World Cup? | OneFootball

England are in the World Cup semi-finals but we’re not expecting them to win the whole damned thing. But why did Thomas Tuchel take Kobbie Mainoo?

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Why did Thomas Tuchel take Kobbie Mainoo?

None of us are privy to the happenings within the England camp during training, strategy sessions and so forth, so none of us have the same level of information as the manager with which to make decisions. That said. In a situation where your central midfielder has to come off, do you:

a: Bring on the presumably fresh, yet to get a minute central midfielder on the bench who happens to have been a major part of the Premier League team getting the most points since Christmas OR

b. Bring on an attacker, forcing your best player out of position, and being such a disaster you have to revisit the decision again after, barring VAR, you’ve gone down a goal being dominated by Norway.

Then when you are forced to rethink your masterplan, do you:

a: Bring on the presumably fresh, yet to get a minute central midfielder on the bench who happens to have been a major part of the Premier League team getting the most points since Christmas OR

b: Bring on a right back, again changing the midfield around and forcing everyone out of position

I know England won and all that, but why even take Mainoo? Ryan, Bermuda (Madueke is just a sign-post that reads ‘no threat from this flank til subs’)

England v Argentina predicted

Let me save you a couple of hours of your life on Wednesday…

… England will go 1-0 up after the hydration break/Tuchel tactical tweak (I’m a poet and I don’t know it!) with Saka channeling his Arjen Robben, cutting in from the right and rifling it into the top corner.

… Around the 60 minute mark, Bellingham, who has been targeted all game, will lose his rag and get sent off. Shortly after, Argentina will score a disputed goal with an English defender prostrate in the box.

… England survive and the game goes into extra time when another defensive injury forces Tuchel to bring on Phil Neville (you can insert the scapegoat of your choosing) who loses Messi who scores the go-ahead goal with about 10 minutes to play.

… England immediately bring on Harry Maguire (insert name of big lumping player here) and proceed to lob balls into the Argentina box like soldiers throwing grenades.

… The game finishes with a Martinez clearing the ball off the line.

Just as FIFA scripted it. Adidasmufc

(Is it just me or does anyone actually ENJOY watching England play? I feel like I need a defibrillator beside me for the two hours)

A defence! I see a defence!

As with ‘86 & ‘90 campaigns England have come up with a decent if knackered team.

Guehi and Stones. Konza then James and O’Reilly then Spence will make it hard for Argentina.

Then if Declan Rice cannot play 90, Morgan Rogers and his long-range rockets is a good option.

It’ll be jittery but close for the right to play France or Spain in the final. Peter, Andalucia

So negative after an actual England win

I’ve just skimmed this morning’s mailbox. Christ almighty. The negativity. Didn’t you lot just win a World Cup quarter final? Robert, Irishman in Birmingham

No negativity here…this is what we wanted

I didn’t get to see the post-match interviews or analysis because we were too busy singing Three Lions and We’ve Got Bellingham (so happy my boy is finally hooked on the footy!). But what I’ve read on here this morning is in line with my thoughts.

Maybe this is as good as we are, but also, maybe that’s ok. For most of my life, we couldn’t get over the line – epic battles or miserable flops – always the same result. These days – we consistently get over the line (not yet the final line). Performances may not always be sparkling, but the desire to win is what we’ve always criticised them for – now they have it.

Since 2018 (when my son was born, lucky bugger) we’ve had these tournament moments. By moments I mean, eruptions of celebration, which lets face it, is what it’s all about (on to longest paragraph I’ve ever written) –

Tunisia for last minute winner, Panama for fun, Colombia for last minute heartache actually overcome with a pen shoot out win, Sweden for looking like a competent team and breezing through, Croatia for momentarily being ahead in a semi despite the ending, Croatia for avenging previous defeat, Germany for tense match actually going our way, Ukraine for serene win against a team we should beat, Denmark for we actually won a big match, Italy for being ahead in a final despite eventually losing, Iran for fun and free flowing football, Wales for smashing an annoying neighbour, Senegal for swatting aside a potentially tricky underdog, France for the performance despite eventually losing in heartbreak, and here’s where I think it gets really fun after the diabolical group stage and all round poor performance of 2024, Slovakia for last minute overhead kick equaliser and extra time winner, Switzerland for again coming from behind and win a shootout, Netherlands for coming from behind and a last minute winner, even Spain had a moment when Palmer equalised despite eventual disappointment, and now this tournament Croatia for cracking second half, Panama for being frustrated but eventually getting it done, DR Congo for coming from behind late on to win, Mexico for epic rearguard performance in the face of everything, Norway for again, coming from behind to eventually win in Extra time.

That is a f***ton of fun. I know some people will say, yeah, but what have we won, but I reckon if I look back on the previous 8 years, we have 1 moment combined, a last minute winner against Wales. The previous 8 before that, a few moments but very little of the getting over the line mentality. You have to go back to 2002-2004 for anything close to these (Argentina, Denmark, Croatia, Switzerland) but those tournaments ended early because of the mentality.

No real conclusion, just enjoy this, we’re getting everything we asked for for the first 35 years of my life.

How did Bellingham stay on his feet?

I actually started writing in to mention the incredible way that Bellingham stayed on his feet after scoring the winner, but went down a bit of a rabbithole about moments.

He glided through the air and seems to defy gravity in how he continued running to celebrate. Insane athleticism. I reckon putting me (and most people) in the exact position he was in, we might have been able to bundle the ball over the line, but would have definitely ended up in a heap in the floor. Incredible. Paul

On that Bellingham media nonsense

I couldn’t have enjoyed more the repeated back-handers planted on the reporter by Tuchel.

This endless desire to mine football for East Enders-style narratives deserves a slap. To bring up mentality, given the backdrop of media sabotage attempts since Tuchel’s onboarding as manager, was bound to draw ire and the sheer disgust In Tuchel’s face and response was glorious. I want to see more of this. Arsehole questions deserve to be treated as such.

To sneakily bring the Tuchel response back up during the Bellingham interview was a d*** move too. No context provided, just prodding for a reaction. Manufactured conflict.

There is a toxicity in the media mindset. I don’t think the English media are England fans. Clicks are greater than England winning. I’m all for a media panel where managers and players get to ask why the media have to be such a bunch of c@nts.

Semi-final. Let’s have it. Alexander Tovey

…thank you Matt Stead. Seemingly the only level-headed sports writer in the country this morning. Rob

Played it to a T

Tommy T played it just right with his comments – will fire up Bellingham and the rest of the team for Wednesday. Top work. Now isn’t the time to overpraise if we are going to bring it home. Woz

Somebody is new to the Mailbox

It takes quite a bad article to prompt me to bother to send hate mail but you’ve accomplished it. Jude Bellingham needs to shut the f*** up and play football? It was a fairly innocuous answer to a gotcha question. I understand you’re being purposefully obtuse for the sake of being incinerary and click baity but what kind of sustained readership does that support? You got me to click once, congratulations, but you also told me more than enough about how you operate to not click again. You also used the word “embarrassment” in your article, on that I’ll trust you because you must be an expert in the field. Bob Sacamano

Let’s talk Switzerland

Just wanted to write in to make sure Switzerland’s performance vs Argentina got a mention. Summary:

– We played marginally better than Argentina until they scored from a corner.

– Conceding a goal from a corner against Argentina is frustrating and not good enough if you want to beat them as underdogs

– We played marginally better than Argentina until we scored the equalizer

– At the time of the red card, the momentum felt heavily in favor of Switzerland

– From a Swiss perspective, the rest of the game was set up perfectly. From an Argentina perspective, they would have still been confident because of what they just did against Egypt

– The Breel Embolo situation was very sad. It was a dive and apparently it was procedurally correct to use ‘Mistaken Identity VAR’ to give him a second yellow. It’s just sad when someone is punished for a relatively new rule/interpretation in such a high stakes game.

– Switzerland defended very well for 110 minutes. It took a world class goal from outside the box into the top corner to get Argentina ahead.

– Switzerland do not have the players to chase the 2-2 in that situation, especially when Vargas and Manzambi are injured.

If this had been a prime time kickoff in Europe, rather than in the middle of the night, this might have been a performance to finally put an end to media outlets writing things like “a fascinating set of quarter-finalists: big teams, big names and Switzerland” (*shakes fist at the Guardian and Jonathan Wilson*).

If you visit Switzerland you can expect your bus/train/etc to arrive and depart on time. If you watch the World Cup or Euros you can expect to find Switzerland in the quarter-finals (hopefully beyond, one of these days). Oliver Dziggel, Geneva Switzerland

World Cup predictions revisited

As spot-on as the Champions League predictions were, so too have the World Cup predictions been. The cold, hard data was undeniable when identifying only 5 teams as potential winners – a 66.66% win probability for one of Argentina, Spain, France, England or the Netherlands.

My own personal choices aside, the lack of a dark-horse semi-finalist – only the second time in the last 40 years there’s been none when the tournament has been held outside of Europe, possibly signals a shift of some sort. With player and team data so readily available for scouting, preparing for any opposition becomes so much easier, thus negating any potential surprises from the lesser lights. As goes the Champions League latter stages, I believe that so too will future World Cups from here on out. We’ve not seen any more Portos or Monacos gate-crash the CL party, so neither will we see any Moroccos, Turkeys, or Bulgarias do likewise in the WC. Data has ensured that the both tournaments become close-gated affairs. This being the first time all top 4 seeds made the semi’s is proof of that.

As for who will win this tournament, based on available data, it boils down largely to which team has the most rest before the finals. Looking at the last 10 World Cups, there’s data to tell us which teams have played their semi-finals match a day earlier than their finals opponents. We’ll eliminate 1994 and 1986 because both semi’s were played on the same day.

Of the remaining 8 World Cups, there is an even split 4-4 between Day 1 and Day 2 semi-final winners going on to win the finals.

2022 – Argentina (winner) semi-finals Day 1, France semi-finals Day 2

2018 – France (winner) D1, Croatia D2

2014 – Germany (winner) D1, Argentina D2

2010 – Netherlands D1, Spain (winner) D2

2006 – Italy (winner) D1, France D2

2002 – Germany D1, Brazil (winner) D2

1998 – Brazil D1, France (winner) D2

1990 – Argentina D1, West Germany (winner) D2

While this might suggest a crap-shoot, a closer look reveals something different. Two of the Day 2 semi-final winners that went on to win the finals, only did so because their opponents semi-final matches had gone all the way to penalties – France winning the finals in ’98 after Brazil’s semi’s went to penalties. In 1990, both semi-finals went to penalties, but Argentina also went to penalties in the quarterfinals, leaving West Germany nominally fresher to win the finals.

More importantly, in 4 of the last 5 finals, the winners have come from teams who played their semi-final matches first, suggesting that sports science has evolved so much in the last 20 years compared to the previous 20, meaning a single day’s extra rest almost guarantees victory when the margins between finalists are so small.

All this is bad news for Day 2 semi-finalists England, who’ve already gone to extra-time in one quarterfinals match, and even worse for Argentina, who went to extra-time in the Round of 32 and the quarterfinals. Their best chance of success is to win their semi-finals in regulation time, and then hope that Spain/France goes to penalties.