The hurting
For someone that was born just a couple of weeks after the 1966 World Cup Final the hurt has ached for a long time. Tonight is a struggle to be honest.
The best team did win, but the question nags and it will for the rest of the summer, is did we allow them to win or did they beat us?
I think Thomas Tuchel lost us that game. Yes, as a fan we got further than I expected at the tournament, but we never really played well and had to rely on our best players to come good in the moments that mattered.
Tuchel has been praised for his in-game decisions and substitutions although sometimes, well often, they’ve confused me, but that fine, that is why he is paid the big bucks and I’m in front of the telly.
But, tonight when it really, really mattered he let us down. Southgate got constantly criticized for it, but tonight was a repeat of Italy at Euro 2020(1). The FA hired Tuchel to take us to the next level, and he failed.
Yet, at 1-0 we had the world at our feet. Argentinian player’s heads dropped, a big chunk of the crowd feared the worse, yet with 40 minutes left we stopped doing all of the things that was panicking them, i.e. getting the ball wide, breaking quickly, the press and sat back.
They wanted to play like spoilers, their fans wanted to sing about the Malvinas, but we kept our heads played to our strengths, and our fans sung about football coming home.
Gordon who scared the life out of them was taken off. A defender came on, more defenders came on and we literally just stood in front of Pickford, the whole team.
Scaloni made aggressive subs, Messi was allowed to roam around on his own out on the right and they put cross and cross into our box, not aimless ones, but Messi type one’s
Pickford made a couple of great saves, they missed a sitter and hit the post twice. Fernandez was simply allowed to get his eye in with those shots meekly closed down. Nathan Jones would’ve had a fit.
Then as sure as night follows day, as we slunk further and further back they killed us off in injury time.
The game was emotional, dirty, exciting, a golden opportunity to at least make the first final in 60 years was right there in front of us, but Thomas Tuchel handed them the incentive and they were bolder, better and believed, whilst we had six defenders on the field and booted the ball up the pitch not believing.
Expensively hired coach, supposedly an upgrade but the same old story.
100% agree with every word you said.when he took Gordon off and put Konsa on i was shouting at the screen NO DONT DO THAT. From that moment i knew and took the dog for a walk, i telly did.
Did we allow them or did they beat us. WE BEAT OURSELVES
I think Thomas Tuchel is a good manager for England, but sadly he turned the last 20 minutes into an unplanned masterclass in “How Not to Protect a Lead.”
Had they not seen what happened to Egypt when they were 2–0 up against Argentina? If you let the maestro wander around the edge of the box he’ll eventually provide the assist to one of his willing side-kicks. You can park two London buses, a double-decker replacement service, and half the Northern Line on the goal line, and he’ll still somehow thread the ball through.
Still, football is all about finding positives (we do that with Charlton all the time!). England got a valuable lesson in game management, Messi reminded everyone he’s annoyingly good at football, and best of all, the Argies won’t be rocking up at the Euros in two years’ time!
Totally agree with all the comments above and I was so surprised that the substitutions were made at that stage of the game.We were in control but going defensive so early allowed Agentina to get control and they did !!!!
Oh well…..
100% agree with all the above.
1-0 up and a masterclass in making the wrong decisions.
Unforgivable.
Absolutely agree with all of the above. Sadly Tuchel lost us the game. Somebody once said ‘the best form of defence is attack’. How true that should have been last night. Twenty minutes was far too long for the tactics that should have been applied for injury time only. As soon as I saw the substitutions, the outcome was staring us all in the face. Our defence had been barely ‘average’ through the earlier rounds.Whatever made Tuchel think it could withstand the barrage of probably the best attacking force in the competition.
I see this morning Tuchel has ‘no regrets’……….Really ????
I can only agree with most of what has already been said. Tuchel committed a major tactical error and we were very lucky to only lose by one goal. It could easily have been 1-3 or even 1-4.
Messi showed how valuable he was to Argentina and made a mockery of his age and lack of mobility. I virtually wrote him off in an earlier post but I was so wrong!
It would be difficult to like a team that plays in a way that is abhorrent to me but they sure know how to win. I have got Spain in my club’s World Cup Draw and it would be wonderful in so many ways if they could best Argentina on Sunday!
I agree that Tuchel was wrong substituting Gordon for Konsa but I do think the players need to shoulder some of the blame. Between the goal and Konsa change England sat back and gave Argentina all the space to play – we’ve all seen it before at club and country level and the end result was inevitable. I don’t believe the players were told to stop attacking if we took the lead. Seems to be an “English” mentality problem. Extremely disappointing that such a good opportunity was thrown away but sadly the best team progress to the final.
its back tothe old question: do we play football or pass ball? My old Dad used to say you cannot score goals unless you are moving forward. Keeping the ball will not win matches-many coaches seem to have lost sight bof this simple fact.
Alan Taylor
I remember leaving the pub in 2016 after we’d been sent home by Iceland. If you’d have told me then that we would be in 4 semifinals and 2 finals over the next 10 years I would not have believed you.
Fair point. It is a million times better since we moved on from the ‘golden generation.’
2010 to 2016 were dreadful.