Thomas Tuchel was appointed by the Football Association of England (FA) in 2024 with the hope that his experience playing knockout matches will help the England national team conquer the 2026 World Cup.
Under Gareth Southgate, the "Three Lions" always have problems at important moments in knockout matches. They reached the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup, twice reached the finals of EURO 2020 and 2024 but could not win any titles. Every decisive moment, Southgate's England team has problems and the FA hopes things will be different when they are replaced by Tuchel.
In previous defeats, there were still opinions that the England team was too unlucky and fell into a passive position. This time everything was completely different, they proactively put themselves in a difficult position against Argentina. Tuchel's too difficult-to-understand substitutions allowed the opponent to completely dominate the game and playing space. If they were luckier, Argentina would have had at least 4 goals, when in addition to 2 goals, there were also 2 situations where the ball found the post.
When the score was 1-1 and the official time was about 5 minutes left, that was when the England team was most chaotic. They had a large number of defenders on the field but were completely deadlocked by the limitation of firepower from the opponent. All the most advantageous spaces to play football belonged to Argentina and the goal that sealed the score 2-1 was as inevitable.
At the time Anthony Gordon scored, the England team played true to the fleeting counter-attacking defensive intention that had been prepared from the beginning of the match. But when Argentina was confused and could lose more, Tuchel did not add attacking stars. On the contrary, he replaced too many defensive players, destroying the attacks that were operating very well before that.
This goes against Tuchel's own view at the beginning of the campaign. In the opening match of the group stage against Croatia, when England was leading 3-2, Tuchel continued to put Saka and Rashford on the field. Just 5 minutes later, these attacking stars contributed to the 4th goal for the "Three Lions" after a counter-attack, sealing a 4-2-win.
Thomas Tuchel and the England coaching staff spent months just talking about fitness, playing intensity, pressing style and deployment speed. But at the most decisive moment to win a ticket to the final, they did the opposite of all those philosophies.
Thomas Tuchel is not a novice. The German coach once won the Champions League with Chelsea, had a time at the top of PSG and Bayern Munich. All those basic theories are not too advanced. Tuchel understands very well, but at a moment of wrong decision, he paid too high a price.
There is no more excuse for Tuchel. This is the 4th semi-final in the past 8 years of this talented generation of players from the foggy country. In football, the line between winning and losing is very fragile. Sometimes failure comes in an unexpected way and teams have to accept it. However, losing in an active way like the "Three Lions" this morning is the most unacceptable thing!
