FIFA World Cup 2026: England Tournament Thread [R]

Matt Law said a few hours ago he didn’t want Tuchel sacked so intriguing he is now writing articles that could cause that to occur.

 

He'd certainly be better than Tuchel but he can over complicate things. And, his systems would take ages to implement on the training ground.

 

Regarding leaks. It seems obvious that players are told who is starting 3 hours before kick off. So Rogers was told that yesterday, He sends a message to his agent, and it is all over the internet 20 minutes later. Other "surprise" starters James/Spence, kept their mouths shut. So They was not known until later.

Very disrespectful by Rogers.

 

It's semantics but again the team is the team not how they play for their clubs in a different system. its how they function and perform as a unit. its not impossible that Lisandro would do better outside United. He is not a top class defender but you are right he is good. All their players are good and a few are great. Their profiles work together and the team mentality is astonishing and then there is Messi who is an alien and takes them up by 40%. So when you break it down as a total package as a team not picking them apart based on the EPL they have shown to be better than England the last 5 years and yes even now.

We all doubted them I did too. Many thought England were too physical too deep for them I did too. We were all wrong.

 

Here are the reasons why this makes Tuchel look even worse:

1. He's in charge, WTF is 'the players did it anyways'. If the players don't listen to your instructions, that's a huge red flag

2. He had a lead, a hydration break AND all 5 subs available with 25 minutes left. You are not playing at altitude or extreme heat. That's about as good of a situation as it gets during a game for a coach. You can literally replace half the team if they don't follow your instructions.

3. Even if you park the bus, you need to have some sort of an outlet to relieve pressure/force their defenders back. OK, if Gordon is too tired - get Saka, Rashford, even ********ing Madueke on, they would allow you to have some of a counter play.

4. You need to have a back-up plan in case Argentina scores. What was the plan? Pray to make it to extra time, suffer through another 30 minutes and hope for penalties?

5. And then, finally when you need to score, you adjust your formation to have Konsa as your key man on a wing to try to get some crosses in.

So we lost despite
- Having a lead and all subs available with 20 min to go
- No injuries to key players
- No major ref decisions going against us

It's really hard to come up with a scenario where a coach would be more at fault than at a game like this.

 

The players all putting their heartbroken posts on social media. Doesn’t seem like they are going to try that much in the third place match.

 

Good post and well laid out, point 1 especially stands out if what were lead to believe that Tuchel didn’t want us parking the bus. This is also where you need a strong captain to get the team pushing on. I can only think they were dead in the water and subs were really needed to freshen it up in midfield and out wide but once again it falls on Tuchel and his poor squad selections when he clearly doesn’t trust his own players he picked.

 

1000% all true but why weren't England able to break the press for 17 minutes before the defensive changes occurred? Not break the press and get a counter but make a single pass?

If you are Tuchel and your team is folding that bad under pressure it is a risk to keep the game as is or add more offence which lead him to the decision that they needed to close up shop and pray.
Those 17 minutes tell the story of the players on the pitch. I agree Tuchel made it worse but it becomes a counterfactual. We have no evidence there was going to be any relief regardless.
It looked like a goal was coming and much sooner than the 84th minute. Likely still get 2-1 if he does not go defensive based on those 17 minutes. 1st half means nothing in this scenario.

 

It all seems moot point anyway, even if the players were the ones to originally start sitting off of their own accord, isn't making adjustments to wrestle back the momentum of the game the whole difference a world class coach was meant to make to the team? The idea a coach with 5 subs availables only recourse when we started dropping off was to double down on it is a pretty bizarre one. Momentum ebbs and flows in games. Teams protecting a lead is normal, teams dropping down to 12% possession doing it is not (6% possession after Tuchel's change).

Plus Tuchel's interventions actually made us worse defensively. We were struggling before the hydration break but Argentina only had 2 shots in the 17 minutes after our goal of combined xG of 0.16 (we also had 2 shots in this period). In the 14 minutes between us subbing Gordon off for Konsa and going 5 a the back and conceding, we conceded 6 shots with combined xG of 0.77, while having zero shots. Even for a side parking the bus there was clearly a lot wrong structurally with no one replacing Gordon on the left leaving Spence facing two attackers constantly, and Messi realising no one was covering out there so he just kept drifting to space in the right not being picked up. Even as a parking the bus effort it was a really poor attempt at it where we did nothing to try and prevent the crosses coming in.

Then of course even after equalising and the plan failing we still didn't make any changes and continued trying to defend for our lives.

 

Lee Carsley knows how to win tournaments with England.

 

I don't agree on that. Guehi has been proven to be one of the best defenders in the world. Konsa has been superb for Villa in they Europa League run and is definitely good enough. Its not their fault they keep getting chopped and changed

 

They didn't batter us through some sort of magnificent rally. They battered us because Tuchel waved the white flag and went all pussyish

 

English youth football is all about technique now. The strong fast direct play went out of English youth teaching years ago

 

I need some distraction from that sh#t show we saw last night. Have we got any wunderkids coming through, who are going to give this team a spark next season, besides Ngumoha and Dowman? (If not, can you just make someone up).

 

The longer it's gone on the more I'm actually feeling heartbroken. It's sinking in now. That twat has cost us the best opportunity in our lifetimes

 

Ron aldo is supposed to be a brilliant prospect. He's strong quick and a great finisher. Keep an eye on him

 

So it has nothing to do with the players on the pitch? If the entire nation solidifies that into an iron clad excuse it will remain there for decades. To deny Mess's brilliance from 55th minute to the 97th minute and to deny that the England defenders and midfielders came up short when they needed to step up and blame it all on Tuchel is huge mistake. To me waving the white flag is everyone blaming it on Tuchel. Don't give the FA an easy out make the necessary adjustments and show up with better players in 4/8 years. The word because is a precursor to an excuse either way they battered England. I would both fire Tuchel and examine why they can't break a possession press against a top team.

86 was because of the hand of God
2026 because of Tuchel
Don't ask anymore questions.

 

When it comes to technical ceiling, the only England player on the pitch, who has the same technical baseline that the Argentina attack have was Bellingham or Kane
The rest of Englands technicians were simply rejected by Tuchel (Foden, Palmer, Gibbs White, Wharton, Mainoo, Trent, Hall etc) all left at home or left to rot on the bench..

Tuchel doesn't like technicians, he consistently prefers verticality and transition specialists with his teams and not only did it get exposed against Argentina. But England looked limited against Norway and even Mexico. He basically built an England team to resemble something that looked like his Bayern or Dortmund teams that he built.

Which is why he needs to leave. He got everything wrong. His playing style, his squad selection and then finally his mid-game tactical changes.

I've been warning my friends about this for ages, but many of them simply can't tell the difference between profiles like Rogers, Anderson, Gordon and Madueke compared to the technician profiles I highlighted above. They literally think Morgan Rogers and Elliot Anderson have a similar technical baseline as Kobbie Mainoo and Adam Wharton, just because they play at big clubs in the Premier League etc..

 

We call them wonderkids in Ingerlund.

I'm a big fan of this young lad called Theo Walcott.

 

Wayne Wooney

 

Yes the issues of 2018/2020/2024 were even worse with the profile of player chosen here.
Whatever people say about Phillips/Foden/Palmer/Grealish they did better than 12% possession which is unimaginably bad.

He wen't all in and it backfired. maybe if he faced Colombia/Swiss/France it could have worked but that's hoping the teams you face play into the profile of the team you built with no plan B.

 

I honestly don't think I'll be here to see another tournament

 

Southgate's 1st cycle never had most of the names I mentioned. It was a Catenaccio team, plus Kane & Sterling.

It was only during his 2nd cycle (2022-2024) these talents started to emerge from the youth ranks and to be fair to Southgate, he integrated most of them into the team by 2024.

Then Tuchel came along and kicked them all out..

And even though the history book will show that he reached the semi finals of a WC. I still think Tuchel's arguably the worst England coach in recent memory.

 

Because I am an idiot.

I've just twigged your username.

 

Bloody 'ell mate, l've only been posting on here 3 years!