England's World Cup: Tuchel's Gamble, the Saka Mystery, and a 6-4 Send-Off

I’ve spent more time thinking about England’s World Cup than about any other team’s, and almost all of it on one specific thing: that second half against Argentina. I watched it back, read everything I could about it, and still wanted to know exactly what happened. This is where I’ve landed, a few days on, with a bit of distance and a lot less anger than most people had on the night.

The group stage, and the games before Argentina

If one line captures England’s whole World Cup, it’s that they played to the level of their opposition. They started with a really exciting, high-scoring, expansive game against Croatia, scored four, and looked like they could have had more. The Croatia goals back were good ones, so there wasn’t much England could do about those. Then they hit two low blocks in Ghana and Panama and went right down a level. They really struggled to break Ghana down, though every team struggled against Ghana, and the Panama game was boring, goalless at half time before they found a couple of chances and scored in the second.

The Congo game in the round of 32 was amazing, a great watch. Congo played really well and England came back. If it weren’t for Congo’s smaller name and the huge expectations, people would have seen that England played really well and created a lot; it wasn’t the disaster it was made out to be.

Then Mexico, which was something else. England struggled in the second half after the red card and the penalty, but they fought brilliantly and showed real quality to score those two goals in a row. Before that it was fairly even, with Mexico maybe shading it, but England defended really well when they had to and showed huge spirit. Winning 3-2 at altitude, down to 10 men, against a Mexico side that looked really good all tournament, is a proper result. It kicked off at two in the morning after an hour’s weather delay, which made it even more memorable, and Harry Kane’s post-match interview after losing his voice was hilarious.

Then Norway in the quarterfinal, a scrappy 2-1 after extra time. England aren’t as solid as France, they’re more in the Spain or Argentina bracket for ups and downs, but they look solid and they show up in the big games. That run set up the Argentina semi-final, and this is where it gets complicated.

I don’t think anyone actually knows what happened

That’s the honest starting point. I didn’t know. I don’t think anyone could have told you at the time whether England were told to back off, whether they did it by themselves, whether they assumed a low block or fell into one. Nobody had an answer.

Then Thomas Tuchel gave a press conference before the France game and talked a lot about the Argentina game, and I was really looking forward to it, because I wanted the actual explanation from the only person who could give it.

What he actually said, and what I think he meant

Tuchel’s stance in that press conference was really good. They were pushing him on who was responsible for what happened in the Argentina game, looking for a headline, and he said he doesn’t want to get into that game of responsibility, and that if they’re looking for someone to take it, he’ll take it as the coach. That’s a very good thing to say. And then he said he was happy to explain it.

He said they lost control of the game. They lost the ball, they lost the centre. I watched it back with that in mind. Argentina started that second half without creating very good chances at all, and then they built on it slowly and slowly.

He saw Argentina gaining control, getting crosses in, creating half chances. But he thought they wouldn’t be able to sustain it, which is a fair enough thing to think, because England were doing okay handling those crosses and okay defending them. And then Argentina just got better and better and better.

He kept saying one phrase in that interview, a couple of times: they kept getting into the next gear, the next gear, and the next gear. That repetition tells you a lot. I think he expected Argentina to go up a gear and then come back down a gear. So his read was probably: we’re in a bit of trouble, not too much, we’re doing all right, we’ll absorb the pressure, it’s going to pass, we can survive it, we can sit in a low block for a few more minutes, and then we’ll regain possession and work our way back into the game.

That’s how football works most of the time. You put a lot of energy and fitness and runs into a spell, you seek your moments, you create a few chances, and then you back off because it’s really hard to sustain. It’s the same thing I said about Spain in the final.

He also made a really good point about it being real life, in the game, and obviously a lot harder than it is for pundits or people watching it back afterwards or fans. He based that on his own experience, and fair enough.

He had two options and he picked one.

The other one was bringing attacking players on, opening the space up even more, and really banking on having the ball. Instead he thought Argentina would back off a bit, and that sitting in a low block for a few more minutes would bounce the momentum back.

It’s one of those where I know he’s meant to play direct, attacking football, and that’s not why he came to the World Cup. But he took a decision, and I think any decision is better than no decision, and he was definitely brought in to take decisions rather than to sit on them. I really think Southgate would have been even later in taking one, and taking none would have been worse.

The obvious criticism is that you’ve seen Argentina come back into games all tournament and you really should have known that’s when they thrive. But the reason we know that so confidently now is because they’ve done it to England as well. You could just as easily have been sitting there going: they’ve done it against Cape Verde and Egypt, and we’re much better than those two, they can’t do that to us. That’s a fair enough thought to have, and I think that’s what he thought.

It was the wrong choice obviously. But if he’d gone for attacking players, what happens? Does England bounce back, find spaces, find the ball, keep it a bit longer, break Argentina’s momentum? Maybe not. Maybe Argentina score much quicker. Maybe Argentina score three or four, which entirely could have happened, because Argentina looked like the much better team overall in that game. Maybe this was actually the best scenario. Maybe England concede more if they open up.

That’s the beauty of football. We’ll never know. It’s right to criticise him. He had enough information to sway him the other way, and the same information could have guided him exactly where it did.

There’s one more thing I can’t prove. When he sat in the low block, he might have been thinking about how well they did exactly that against Mexico, but if the England team as a whole thought that because they’d done it against Mexico they could do it against Argentina, that’s a bad argument. You can’t compare Mexico to Argentina. They’re a much better team, and they deserved to go to the final.

The decision he should actually be criticised for

That defensive substitution got criticised so much, and for me it was maybe a 60-40 call he got wrong. The decision he wasn’t criticised enough for is not playing Bukayo Saka.

Saka said before the tournament that he’s fine and he wants to play, and he was left out completely. When Tuchel was asked about it, he said it was a tactical decision rather than a fitness one, and that he had a feeling about Morgan Rogers. That sounded quite defensive to me. It sounded like he was justifying to himself why he wasn’t playing Saka.

And I think he’s very right to regret it, because he should have played him. Saka then showed in the third place game that he can play 90 minutes, and scored a hat trick doing it, and he’d already shown in the games before how good he is. To bring Rashford and Ivan Toney on in those last few minutes ahead of Saka is a very wrong decision. I think that’s probably the decision Tuchel regrets more than any other he took.

I don’t think Saka would have turned that match around, but it would have been a much better bet to take. I get why he was inspired to play Morgan Rogers, who got that assist and had a good game. That doesn’t mean Saka couldn’t have had a better one.

And this is the part that worries me, because it’s a pattern. Tuchel is not a long-term manager. He gets into conflicts. He left Bellingham at home during the qualifiers, and Bellingham has had an insane World Cup, to the point where he could have won best player of the tournament if he’d been in that final. Harry Kane had a really good World Cup too. I think Tuchel and Bellingham are fine now, but they had clashes, and now Saka. That relationship has got to improve.

Keep him. Just know what you’re buying

I would definitely keep Tuchel. He’s an insane manager, one of the best in the world, and getting that calibre of manager into a national team is a privilege. England should hold on to him.

But he comes with caveats.

• He’s a great tournament manager, and he showed it with a lot of really good decisions, including that first eleven against Argentina.
• He can get decisions wrong too. If you want a manager who takes a lot of decisions, some of them are going to be wrong ones. That’s the trade.
• His real caveat is that he’s a conflictual manager. He’s very blunt. That comes with a lot of good things and it comes with negatives, and it’s always going to happen.
• Having that kind of manager across four years, even in a national team, is not safe. I’ll put it that way. It can blow up.

That’s a risk, and it’s a risk worth taking.

The 6-4 nobody was supposed to care about

The third place game France and England gave us was insane. I thought it was going to be a friendly.

Both teams had done interviews beforehand saying they didn’t want to play it, which is a bit cocky, because loads of countries would have wanted to play it. They’re going to remember it now, especially after that display.

I don’t want to read too much into it, though. If that had been the final it would have been a completely different game, and loads of the players who played in it wouldn’t have been on the pitch. If somehow France had beaten Spain and England had beaten Argentina, and France played England in a final, we would not have seen that game at all. So I wouldn’t use it as evidence for which team was actually better.

But given all of that: what a match. Saka’s hat trick, Rice scoring inside three minutes, Konsa heading in, four goals by half time, France coming back to 4-3 with Mbappé going past Messi’s career World Cup scoring record, Dembélé pulling one back in stoppage time, and Bellingham strolling forward at the death to make it ten goals in the game and become the first England player to score seven at a World Cup. It was a Saturday night, everyone was watching it, and it was a lot more interesting and a lot more spectacular than the game we got the next day.

So thanks very much, France and England. That was great.

Where England actually deserved to finish

England had a fine World Cup, and Tuchel is right when he says that’s an insane performance in context.

They played well. They had hard opposition and hard games. Facing Mexico and Norway might have been the most difficult path any of the good teams had before the semi-final, and they adapted really well to it. They were a bit flat against Ghana, but everyone was happy. And before that second half against Argentina, when England went 1-0 up, I bet every English fan in the country thought we’re doing really well. He got the country hyped up. Everyone was thinking about it, talking about it. The Mexico game that everyone stayed up for. Insane memories.

But I have to be honest about the ceiling. I think Spain would have smashed England too. Argentina deserved to be in that final, and the fact that Spain were so much better than Argentina in it showed me that Spain could have beaten anyone. Spain’s win over France was more convincing than their win over Argentina, even though they arguably controlled the Argentina game more. Argentina did a lot better to sit in that low block and absorb it.

I hope I’m wrong, and I wish we’d got a better final either way, but I really think Spain would have knocked England out of the park. Out of the three possible opponents, England would have been the easiest game Spain got. So that’s about as far as they deserved to go.

The home Euros

England have got a really good base to work on, and the Euros at home are the target now.

It’s not entirely in their hands, though. Germany and Spain look like much better teams than England at the moment, and England have got a lot of work to do to overcome them, because they’re just better footballing nations. I know England beat France, fair and square, in a really good game, so maybe France weren’t as good as everyone thought. Maybe Spain is the only one they actually have to catch up with. I hope that’s the case.

England can give us a great Euros. There’s always a lot of talent in that squad, and there always will be. Hopefully this Tuchel era just keeps getting better. It’s been a good World Cup for them.