England 1-2 Argentina: Did Thomas Tuchel’s tactics cost England place in World Cup final?
England showed character in this World Cup by beating the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the last 32 stage and Norway in the quarter-finals.
“The gap continues against Norway and Mexico [in the last 16]”They don’t have the quality that this Argentina team has in terms of their ability to use the ball and punish you,” former England captain Alan Shearer told BBC Sport.
“Tuchel played his cards very, very early and it backfired.”
England looked to have taken full control of the semi-final against their old rivals when Gordon put them ahead 10 minutes into the second half.
England’s fans celebrated wildly, but then the Three Lions opted to sit back and defend.
Chris Sutton, who won the Premier League with Blackburn in 1994-95, told BBC Radio 5 Live: “For England to take the lead and then give the initiative to Argentina… it was a disaster for Thomas Tuchel as a manager.”
“You can’t expect to defend for 30 minutes against the quality Argentina have.
“Everything that concerns me is about the manager. He made the changes. It was negative, so my question is: ‘How can you trust Thomas Tuchel to take this team forward?'”
England have suffered defeats against Argentina in the past.
Who can forget Diego Maradona’s famous ‘Hand of God’ goal at the 1986 World Cup or the devastating defeat at the 1998 World Cup?
But England have no one to blame for Wednesday’s defeat but themselves.
“Norway and Mexico panicked against England,” former England goalkeeper Joe Hart told BBC Sport.
“I didn’t see even the slightest panic on the Argentine side. I saw the belief, I saw them realizing they could get the big man Lionel Messi out of the pocket and they were running all over England.
“Gareth Southgate has taken a lot of criticism for big moments in big games with England where they go ahead and close up shop. I don’t see anything changing in that big moment.”
So what were the changes that made England fans so angry?
Taking a 1-0 lead, many expected Tuchel to score another goal but instead the German made three defensive changes.
He brought on Konsa to replace Gordon in the 72nd minute and brought on defensive reinforcements in Burn and O’Reilly 10 minutes later.
Tuchel sent on Rashford and Toney as strikers in injury time, but this turned out to be too late.
“With the changes we made at 1-0, I felt that if Argentina scored we wouldn’t be able to go into extra time,” Rooney said.
Former England defender Micah Richards told BBC Sport: “When England scored the first goal they should have scored the second goal.
“Yes, you respect their quality, but going deep allowed Argentina to get into their flow.”
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, former England goalkeeper Paul Robinson said Tuchel dug deep too quickly.
“I think he was wrong about that,” added Robinson, who played 41 times for England between 2003 and 2007.
“He made a lot of the right decisions, but I think it was the wrong choice to try to defend the lead against this team.”
