ATLANTA — Hindsight is everything but we all saw it coming. In homes and public houses up and down England, you turned to your left or right and concluded that England were sitting too deep and inviting too much pressure. You didn’t even need to consider yourself an aficianado or expert. How can that happen: a nation shouting at the man supposed to know best and the nation being right?
There was Mexico, when it worked. But then Mexico didn’t actually have a brilliant set of attackers and midfielders. Argentina did. They wanted the pitch to be small and they wanted the best player of all time to have seconds in which to plan his next move and England gave Argentina both. Some things happen for a reason and sometimes that reason is you.
If you have proven your capability to control a match, its tempo and its destiny. If you have attacking depth on the bench that has proven its worth. Then why on earth would you let that slip and invite a wave that you cannot hold? It was unfathomable then and it will remain so on Thursday morning as England awakens to one of those hangovers.
There has been an otherworldliness to this England World Cup campaign, ethereal, intangible strands that make it feel unreal and impossible to hold in your hand. We spent a group stage wondering whether England were good and most of the knockout stage presuming that we must be. And now we don’t really know again.
The defence had been the best indicator of the weirdness. England have now had three different centre-back pairings and two different starting left-backs. They have started four different players at right-back and that makes six different starting back fours. This isn’t normal in a major tournament.
The irony of this summer is that this has been a moments team, as everybody keeps saying. But then those moments have been surrounded – and even overshadowed – by a deliberate defensive strategy that has done far more to define their performance.
In the altitude of Mexico City, that felt permissible even if our cheer was entirely guided by the outcome. England were brave and heroic because the situation demanded it. England had 10 men and their 10 men were here to fight. They also pulled it off.
Against Argentina, a better attack but a defence that could be pulled out of position, it was an act of tactical cowardice. All of the substitutions were abject, but taking off Anthony Gordon for Ezri Konsa and swapping to a back six that became a seven, eight, nine? Highly risky. And when the risk punches you back in the face you deserve the criticism. I will think about that switch with 30 minutes to go until Euro 2028.
It is no exaggeration to say that Thomas Tuchel was appointed for those last 30 minutes. The knockout king who would finally not let England be fazed by the elite opponent or the game state. The elite winner. The single tournament gun for hire to Get. It. Done.
After his appointment, Tuchel spoke of England’s fear of winning and attacking being the cause for falling short in 2024. England had 12 per cent of the ball between scoring and Argentina’s winner. They recorded 0.07 xG in that 37 minutes. How did the manager appointed to be brave embrace the fear culture more than anyone else before him?
If cowardice was the accusation spat by many at Gareth Southgate in the final of 2021 and most of the way through 2024, how could it not be the same here? This is a better team than we had in 2021. This was an easier path than the past World Cup, when England didn’t really play like this at all.
You see this isn’t the same – it is worse. This is a new era under a new manager. This was supposed to be the future not the extension of a recent past that made everybody argue with each other. We were told that it would be different because we had an elite winner who would not make the same mistakes. Add this one to the pile.
It’s not just that Tuchel failed to make good on his remit. It is that we saw the worst of him in that 30 minutes. He stared an elite opponent in the face and said…. “Oh actually yeah we’re going to try and sit on this and bring on loads of defenders”. It was an act of gross negligence given his supposed remit.
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There will be many layers to this England exit and the future is complicated. The manager has extended his contract, an attempt to create certainty. Jude Bellingham is the leading light of the national team and hopefully that will remain. The great striker will have two more years on the clock when it really matters again and Harry Kane seemed broken post-match. The defence is weak and might need rebuilding.
The principal conclusion is the same as two years ago, four years ago, six years ago: what if? What might have been if England had looked to maximise their prodigious strength? Defending deep takes guts; we saw that in Mexico. Backing yourself to avoid defending deep – that takes more.
Southgate ultimately paid the price for failing that final task, despite all his good. In the USA, so too did Tuchel. Losing hurts so much. Losing in the same way as before hurts three times as badly. As the song we’re so damn sick of hearing goes: “We’ve seen it all before.” Curse those who promised that things had changed.
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