Wrong! I said they always lose to top sides over and over again which is why blaming the coach in 2026 for again losing to a top side is pointless. Yes they often beat teams at their level or the level below. They are the 4th or 5th best team in the world nothing wrong with that but if people make excuses for them then I have to point out their record. It's not me making a normative statement thats just the reality. Show me don't tell me! Show me them beating a top side. Show me how England losing to Argentina was the exception not the rule. So yes we agree they ALWAYS LOSE WHEN THEY FACE A TOP TEAM we all know this because it's just the record. The only difference here is me not making an excuse for them is you reading me being against them or saying they are not a good team. Over and over I have said they are the 4th best team of this era. They should be happy with that it is their historical peak level off home soil.
THE COACH PARKED THE DAMN BUS AFTER THEY SCORED. They never had the possession again, I wonder why. There was 30 mins left to play. Tuchel put in 6 FREAKING DEFENDERS, 6! Everyone is the world is talking about it. I don't care if you post a link or two, just look around I could post a thousand. It was all Tuchel's fault. I really wonder if Gattuso or Spalletti did this shit, what you would say.
He moves Jude out of position and puts him on the left wing. He never takes Kane out who can't move anymore. He takes his other midfielder Rice out for a sideback. He takes out his only winger for a CB. So there is no outlet when you had Saka Madueke and Rashford on the bench who are all runners. Saka proved against France how world class he is, Rashford I rate higher than Gordon, but Tuchel never uses them just kept putting more and more defenders in. England had 36% possession the entire game but only 12% after they scored, so it was prolly closer to 50-50 before when they went up 1-0. Like it just blows my mind with the amount of attacking options he had, he puts none of them in move his best player out of position and his other best player can no longer move, yet keeps putting in defenders and you say nah it wasn't his fault. I am the type to put full responsibility on the players like I blamed our entire team vs Bosnia along with our coach for not using some of the right guys, but in England's case it was not the player's fault. The coach ********ed them. Sorry.
I would give Croatia a mention, for two semi finals, and twice coming in 3rd place since 1998, and one final 2nd place finish in 2018. They are opposite in that they tend to do better at the World Cup than the Euro, except for this year but there is a big question mark in that game. I'll say this too, as someone who watched almost every game this year (almost), when I was watching England vs Norway, I definitely wanted to play England over Norway. Norway was better IMO.
It was only five. They tried coming forward, like a lot, but couldn't. Watch it again, our midfield swarmed them. Blaming Tuchel is a press thing. I wouldn't fall for it. We can say maybe he didn't bring his best team, leaving Foden and Palmer at home. That's a valid criticism. In the game vs us, they took out an attacker in the 72nd minute for a defender. Normal in most circumstances, then a midfielders for a midfielder, then a defender for a defender, and in the 90th, two attackers for defenders. We've seen this before, a lot.
I like to be balanced in criticism. As I said, in our forum there's a lot of what if's happening at this point. This is normal and expected. Scaloni certainly can be blamed for some selections. More balanced is to understand they were better, we had some dumb yellow's and the rest is history. I see the trend with England and over 3-4 coaches. It can't always be a coaching decision. I also saw them trying to come forward a lot after the goal and then stopped at some point because we had 2-3 players on them everytime they tried to come out. It wasn't working. They did defend really really deep on our first goal, and that cost them. They also just let Messi get to the ball and didn't come out of the 18, which also cost them. Those are player problems, not coach IMO.
Doesn't change the fundamental fact that they always lose when the come up against a top team. Losing to Argentina and having very little possession in an important game is the rule for them not the exception. I respect both sides when a game takes place. Scaloni and Argentina made changes that put Englands midfield which is tactically unbalanced into trouble. If England does not fix this fundamental problem they will be doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over. Social media discourse and people parroting the same thoughts does not impress me. If you dig deeper even very pro English podcasts and analysts have reckoned with the fact that the English managers were screaming at the players to push up the pitch. You can literally see Stones pushing Rice off him. There is no explanation for those 17 minutes outside of a failure of the midfielders on the pitch and their inability to control the ball. You can't prove a negative and say what would have happened if Tuchel made different changes. What we do have evidence of is England going out once they face a Croatia Italy Spain Argentina France every single time. Gary Neville called it! https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cbycIZ6QLrk
Yes Norway were better they beat the England defence and keep 3 times in the 2nd half while England scored off a goal kick. Their midfield would not have collapsed to Argentinas press like that.
I was watching the talkSport highlights while the were watching the game, they called it even when they were up, they screamed WTF is Tuchel doing putting 5 and then 6 defenders in. They were pissed. It was plain in sight but I guess people see it another way, I'll respect your opinions. You are correct about those facts, all those teams except for Croatia were champions. And the facts still stand they have come closer statistically for a longer period of time than other nations in recent history at the very least. The two nations you mentioned both got slammed in group stage games, and rarely lost to a champion. Croatia would of been another team but their Euro runs were disasters, not England.
I keep hearing 6 defenders. Who were they? I guess you mean O'reilly, but he was mostly playing central and at time trying to go up the left side, but didn't get far. It's one thing to observe they were defending deep, and they were, but the 6-defender thing makes it seem like they had 6 actual defenders in, and at no point did they. It seems like shifting the blame. They do that a lot too.
I'm not suggesting for a moment that England 2024 beats Spain/Argentina this time round. How they would get on in this WC, is a separate discussion for me. But you have to bear in mind that Tuchel's objective since he got hired after 2024, has been to stamp his philosophy on his England team and move them in a very different direction to 2022-2024, which was a far more fluid side. 2024's team was built around a very different profile of player. Its not just Rice and Anderson who are limited, but also players like Gordon, Rogers and Madueke clearly have a technical ceiling which is noticeably lower than the 2024 core. The England team we saw this WC, was a typical Tuchel Bundesliga-like team and he picked a squad deliberately to play with his philosophy from the start of the WC qualifiers. England under Tuchel reminds me a lot of how his Dortmund, Bayern & Chelsea teams functioned. The outlier across all three would be Jorginho. Jorginho was a weird outlier in Tuchels Chelsea team, because he historically never trusts a profile like Jorginho in his midfields, as he lacks the mobility and pace of a Tuchel-like midfielder. And Tuchels Bayern team was arguably the worst Bayern team in decades. They got absolutely smoked by Xabi Alonso's Leverkusen that season which eventually got him fired, after losing Bayern the title for the first time in 12yrs.. Moreover, that Leverkusen side were obviously pleasant to watch, but not as elite as the Bundesliga suggested. They were undefeated that season, before we saw their ceiling get completely exposed in the Europa League final against Atalanta. In fact I was thinking recently about how far back you would need to go, to find a Bayern team as one dimensional as Tuchel's. It clearly weren't better than Hansi Flicks, Nagelsmann or Pep's or definitely not Heynckes Bayern teams and was not better than the Van Gaal team - which lost to Mourinho's Inter side in 2010. You would likely have to go back to the days of Jurgen Klinssman as their head coach, to find a worse Bayern side than Tuchel's.
Yes but TalkSport will automatically make England the main character in this story it's just a natural habit all fan bases and media make. Though Italy tends to give other nations credit and blame ourselves when we fail more than other nations. I am not saying Tuchel did a good job. But when people say IT WAS ALL TUCHEL they are excluding the England players the Argentine manager the Argentine players and the fact that England has repeatedly faced this problem and shown this pattern over and over again. So the It was all Tuchel take is very clearly an exaggeration. I am the one bringing balance and further perspective not to say Tuchel made the right choice but that it's not so simple as it was all Tuchel. Beyond that if England fans media and the federation use Tuchel as a scapegoat they will further deny their fundamental issue. If you give England Rodri they win the world cup full stop even with Tuchel. Other nations not so much. If they want to get beyond this hurdle that they continuously fail at they have to solve this fundamental puzzle. Tuchel did not solve the puzzle yes but he also did not create the puzzle.
Well said! 1000% true and great context to add. Give this England prime Jorginho and they win the world cup! They have everything else more or less.
When I lived in France, the one thing I noticed is white kids dont play as much football as you'd often see with working class white kids across Germany, Italy, England, Spain, Holland, Belgium and most or europe actually. White French kids did play a lot of Rugby in the South, where you'd typically see Algerians playing football. In the West, mountain/winter sports are very popular with white French kids. Then outside the big cities, cycling is everywhere. France is possibly the best country in the world for cycling. Which makes sense, when you look at their football team and see how it reflects the sport demographics of the country and who plays football all the time. You probably wont see more white players in the French team unless it becomes more popular among white French demographics Whereas when I contrast this during the few times I visited Northern Italy. Its nothing but football, football, football and all the white kids are playing it. France has nothing resembling industrial Italy outside its immigrant inner cities.
This is probably the most accurate answer I've ever seen on this. The French national team is largely a reflection of really but the collection of the most urban areas throughout the nation but not really representative of the rural at least any longer that is. Hence why they currently look the way they do now. If more White kids played the sport on the elite level in the rural areas , as other ethnic backgrounds in France do in the urban areas right now , then they would likely show up more on the national squad . Yet thats not quite the case as they tend to focus on football only in select urban areas of France . Perhaps prior to 1980 the select urban areas were mainly White though not any longer. I guess this was before the French Govt abandoned the idea of maintaining France as France.
I literally always root against England and wanted Argentina to win it all, and I could see it. talkSport were literally yelling all this shit during the game. Who cares who they want to win. They even said if they brought in some of their options that I keep talking about and lost, then so be it, that wouldn't be on Tuchel. And I wouldn't fully blame him here like I am. Then you say well if they had this player or that player. Maionoo in the midfield looked elite in the Euro 2024, Tuchel never used him once. So no, adding a player in the midfield prolly wouldnt change the results bc Tuchel refused to use any other players except for defenders as subs. Also I will keep saying this, even when they were winning, you had the coach going against their best player. The coach should NEVER do this in a major tourney, sorry. Yes, this shit was all his fault and I will always stick with it. The 6th defender I spoke about is O'Reily. So they put a 6th defender in to play out of position in the midfield and moved Jude to the left flank which is horrible coaching. I am so tired constantly talking about this. We will never see eye to eye so agree to disagree. I'm done.
Although Jorginho in 2018-21 was a difference maker in most of his teams. I'm surprised you're that confident that one elite Regista is enough to transform this England team with Tuchels squad and identity. It would definitely help against teams like Norway, where it hangs in the balance. But if you look at the 2024 team that played holland. It had more press resistance not just in midfield, but all over the pitch inc the opponents half. It was built around getting the best out of Foden, Bellingham, Saka, Palmer and Mainoo. Those options (combined) immediately give a coach the chance to solve problems on the pitch in a very different way to Tuchels teams. Where as the team that played Norway/Argentina, is playing Tuchel-ball and built on a core of Rice, Anderson, Gordon, Rogers, Madueke, then hoping that Bellingham can carry them over the line. Just a very different identity and does not have the team profile to play through pressure and solve problems when the game state goes through spells of chaos. People will obviously highlight that 2024 England still couldn't beat Spain. But in Euro 2024, Spain dismantled Croatia, Italy, Georgia, Germany, France and England over a single tournament. There's a strong case to be made that Spain 2024 is the best international side in recent memory. The current Spain were often looking like they were over the hill, compared to what we saw in 2024 and yet its insane how they still won the WC.
I agree with all of your points about his tactical mistakes just not that it was all his fault because of the 17m before the first defensive sub Englands recent history showing the exact same pattern over and over again and Scaloni's changes/Messi's genius. I give him part of the blame which is very balanced. Talksport and others giving Tuchel all the blame Argentina none of the credit are being very reactive and emotional.
Yes I was exaggerating of course. If you give 2024 Southgate Jorginho then maybe they push Spain to the limit because yes Tuchel's team was completely built on runners. Neville predicted it and it came to pass. England did a lot of good work at StGeorges park to develop technical players over the last 10 years and Tuchel turned the team back into 2006 England.
Its ultimately the fault of the FA for making the final decision and drinking the koolaid that Tuchel was this tournament animal tactician - who would be that difference between a team getting over the final hurdle. Plus his tactical changes were more negative and his teams played worse football than Southgate ever did (esp in his later years). This is where England/Portugal is a lesson for countries like Italy or anyone else who may think hiring a foreign coach like Pep will magically transform their national team. I simply dont know a single case of a federation ever doing this and it working out. In fact it nearly always seems to end badly..
World Cup: Average U.S. TV audience Fox 2026: 7.7 million viewers 2022: 3.6 million viewers Telemundo: 2026: 6.3 million viewers 2022: 2.6 million viewers Note: 104 games
The obvious outlier: Otto Rehhagel of Greece 2004 European Champions The losing Finalist was Portugal also managed by a foreigner, Felipe Scolari.
I thought the Mexican midfield was better than England. They dominated them at times. Yes, I know they were at home. Mexico's transition defense was horrific though and it cost them. I thought Norway were the better team over England as well. England lacks quality in the midfield to pass their way out of an aggressive press. They also lose the ball too often. Credit them for making it deep into tournaments but they have to figure out a way to be better at possession. Neville was really spot on in that clip.
Yes you can't play three 8s together. Jude is fantastic but he is not a 10 that can control a game. Odegard looked like prime Zidane against England and completed more than double the passes that Jude did. You will run out of gas setting up this way. Even the best Italy teams that were built on counterattack had a ball playing midfielder and our ability to defend deep in 82/90/94/98 etc was at an extremely high level.