New characters, same story: How England's World Cup heartache resurfaced - and what comes next | OneFootball

A bitter sense of deja vu remained as Three Lions fell victim to Argentina’s late show

You can change the setting, change a few characters, but if the plot never changes, are you actually telling a different story?

It is a question England could do with asking themselves as they come to terms with the manner in which Lionel Messi and defending champions Argentina cruelly ended their bid for World Cup glory here in Atlanta.

Consider the following. Euro ‘96: semi-final defeat to Germany. France ‘98: Argentina in the last-16. World Cup 2002: Brazil quarter-final. Euro 2004: Portugal quarter-final. Euro 2016: Iceland last 16. Russia 2018: Croatia semi-final. Euro 2020: Italy final. Yesterday. On each occasion, England led a crucial knockout game and still lost. The lesson surely cannot be to not score first. It has to be how to react to going ahead. England sat on a 55th-minute lead and it blew up in their face.

Anthony Gordon’s sensational opener was the only goal until the 85th minute, but then Argentina’s otherworldly powers of recovery kicked in and they prevailed 2-1.

Chelsea’s Enzo Fernandez scored with five minutes to go, then Lautaro Martínez two minutes into stoppage time, both assisted by Messi, the greatest player of all time, whose genius at 39 is proving timeless.

Heartbreak: Lautaro Martinez buries the goal which knocked England out of the World Cup

PA

Onto Sunday’s final against Spain head an extraordinary group hellbent on crowning Messi a double world champion, something they appear to view as a moral obligation. Argentina: a team littered with Premier League pantomime villains, who just seem to find a way.

It was drilled into the players’ psyche by Tuchel’s staff that they were underdogs when they headed to Estadio Azteca to face Mexico in the last-16. Tuchel’s preparation had been much the same here, an easing of pressure, of the weight of the shirt, just with a little reframing.

“The pressure is all on them, they’re the world champions,” Marc Guéhi said, a cheeky half-smile meeting his furrowed brows as if to betray the fact this was a conscious plan, a tactic. It undoubtedly has been all the way through. Even in qualifying, Tuchel would reject suggestions England were among the top contenders at this World Cup.

Life as the plucky underdogs backfired in Atlanta. They started to believe their own unhype. Between Gordon’s goal and the one that knocked them out, England had 12 per cent of possession, cataclysmically low.

Déjà vu for England

It was the mismanagement of those delicate minutes that lost England this semi-final.

“When we went 1-0 up, we seemed to try and hold on, which at this level is not enough,” said Harry Kane, whose assessment was spot on, to no one’s real surprise. He has featured in this story five times over but can’t craft a happy ending.

World Cups are too precious, too rare, not to learn from past mistakes. Tuchel’s England was always just a rebrand, a software update on Gareth Southgate’s England. They were more inexperienced and naïve at his first tournament at Russia 2018, yet eight years on, as though no progress had been made, here was a rerun of that semi-final defeat to Croatia: a collective panic, a fear of the ball, a fear of leading because eyes were now clockwatching and minds on the final. Play the game in front of you — Argentina did.

Thomas Tuchel’s in-game management against Argentina has come in for heavy criticism

Getty

“We smelt blood and we went for it,” said their manager, Lionel Scaloni. England as prey, Argentina as the chasers. That suited the comeback kings. As the story of Argentina’s 2026 World Cup journey repeated itself, so did England’s modern tournament history.

The FA hired Tuchel, this knockout specialist, to get them over the line. Instead, another nearly moment, another ‘what if…’ at the business end of a tournament. The wheat and the chaff duly separated, England are once again on the wrong side of it all, their destiny now Saturday’s third-place play-off against France — the game no one wants to play — and then plenty of soul-searching. Then go again. Tuchel will guide England into a home European Championships in 2028 where as co-hosts they will unavoidably be favourites. The underdog tag won’t wash then.

“If it doesn’t end up well, it’s easy to say that my decisions were wrong,” Tuchel barked afterwards. But there is no hindsight bias in any of the criticism he has fielded since. It was he who wrote for England the very ending they are used to — self-destruct in real-time.

Here was a rerun of the 2018 semi-final defeat to Croatia: a collective panic, a fear of the ball, a fear of leading because eyes were now clockwatching and minds on the final

Before his first match in charge, he’d reflected on their run to the Euro 2024 final under Southgate and declared: “They were more afraid to drop out of the tournament than having the excitement and hunger to win it.” 16 months later, his substitutions and instructions produced a carbon copy of Southgate’s greatest failing. Cue another slow and painful England death. A death by four-dozen yards voluntarily surrendered.

England have enjoyed some stellar moments at this World Cup. Gordon’s semi-final strike was their best team goal of the lot. Kane and Jude Bellingham forged a newfound partnership, which kept them alive until the final week. Their honest supporting act elevated them. There was to be no ending those 60 years of hurt in the end, though.

So, what now?

Tuchel called it one of England’s best performances at this World Cup. Until his changes, that may have rung true.

Those years of hurt will tick on up to 62, but there were sources of encouragement in America, where England went further at a World Cup under a foreign coach than ever before. His controversial selection of Djed Spence vindicated itself as the tournament wore on. Gordon and Anderson excelled.

Djed Spence managed to keep Lionel Messi quiet for long stretches of the semi-final

AFP/Getty

Bellingham hit a level no England player had at a tournament since Bobby Charlton in 1966, matching Pelé on seven World Cup goals aged 23 or younger, a record only bettered by Mbappé. See you Saturday, Kylian.

But while Bellingham is young, Kane, who will be 36 at the next World Cup, is not. This defeat has huge ramifications for the England captain. What massive pressure it places on Euro 2028 being the coming together of all things, the summer it finally happens for England.

“That,” Tuchel said earlier this week, “is essentially what a World Cup is for: to excite a country, to make people forget their worries. There is so much to love about this team, and I’m very glad that people feel it.”

They felt so strongly because they believed so fervently that things were just starting to look different. Nope. A few new characters, the same old story.