At least Southgate would have waited to put the subs on! The tactics were too predictable. We were as reliant on magic from Bellingham and Kane as previous tournaments. We didn’t seriously look like a dominant team.
classic england sitting back after taking the lead. just keep hammering them. they had it in the palm of their hands. fuck sake
You could make the same argument with Messi, the only difference is that he happened to make the moments this game. Tuchel's gamble didn't pay off. Such fine margins, I don't blame Tuchel.
Think the worst part of that is it wasn't a loss that came about because Argentina were the better team*, England just managed the game horribly *although they also were
I can’t say I’m a fan of the modern England playstyle. Score a goal early to midway through a match and then have as little possession as possible for the remainder of the game.
you could make the argument that his brand of pragmatism works well in a knockout competition à la his Chelsea UCL win but he’s gotten it wrong every step of the way
I think when you know you're playing against a team that shown it can dial the pressure up to 11 in the last fifteen minutes of the game, you gotta tactically be prepared for it. I'm not nearly good enough at soccer to speculate how much of the loss comes down to using the wrong subs, how much it falls on the players failing to execute, and how much it falls on the on the field tactics dictated by the coach. But this wasn't "took a gamble and it didn't pay off" this was a team being handed the script ahead of time and still failing to execute. and at least some of the blame for that has to fall on the coach.
Having competed in a lot of tournaments throughout my life I think the mental side is probably the biggest factor once you get to this stage. The higher you get up the mountain the bigger the consequences of one mistake or lapse in concentration becomes. If you replay those last 15 minutes over again I bet the result is a coin toss. This time Argentina happened to be the one that found the moment(s).
I think the Argentina fans were brilliant fwiw. Heard throughout, never gave up and I also think they "sensed" victory when England dropped deep.
It’s one thing to sit back and invite pressure. It’s even worse when you throw on a bunch of defensive players in the process because if you do give up that goal, wtf is the plan afterward?
it’s not a coin toss when you have the greatest player of all time and, if we go based on this tournament alone, still the best player in the world. Tends to tilt the 50-50 odds in your favor.
Then maybe the constant isn't the managers. Three different coaches got burned by the same guy. That's sounds less like bad coaching and more like Messi magic is a real thing.
It really is a privilege to be witness to such a player. Every generation has their star, but not every generations star really is the best to ever do it. don’t let tactical genius Tuchel’s failure to be a genius, England’s choke job, racism, or anything else cloud the fact that we are simply witnessing an all time player have an all time tournament
There’s no curse, that’s a shite excuse. England literally, on cue, went into their shell within a few minutes of scoring and never went back on the front foot or had sustained possession or attacking momentum. You let a team good enough to get to a World Cup semi-final all the shots and possession they want for 45 minutes? Yeah they will probably score a goal or two. I’d buy the curse storyline if England played brilliant and Argentina had a few freak goals, massive referring calls, or Messi scored the goal of the decade, etc. but in reality England backpedaled themselves out of the final.
All I’ll say is if Southgate made those subs and tried to hang on to a lead against Argentina like that for 40 minutes, he would have been dragged through the mud. I don’t think England have looked a team capable of holding a lead against world class opposition, and so it seems a weird choice to try to.