For about an hour, it felt like England had finally figured it out. Everything Thomas Tuchel touched seemed to work. His lineup tweaks made sense right away — Djed Spence flying down the left, Reece James steady on the right, Morgan Rogers holding his own in a physical battle without losing any flair. Even Lionel Messi, who always finds a way to leave his mark, was being crowded out and forced into scraps. It wasn’t pretty, but it didn’t need to be. England had turned a World Cup semifinal into a fight, and for once, it looked like the kind of fight they could win.

Then the game flipped.

Anthony Gordon’s goal just after halftime should have been the moment England took control of their own destiny. Instead, it became the point where everything tightened up. England dropped deeper, and the confidence that had carried them through the first hour slowly drained away. Gordon was taken off in favor of a stronger defense, and suddenly every clearance felt like a surrender. Jordan Pickford had no choice but to go along with it, Harry Kane was left chasing scraps now, and any sense of control they'd found had disappeared.

By the time Marcus Rashford and Ivan Toney came on, the damage was already done. Argentina had turned it around and taken the lead; England was left with only a few desperate minutes to try and fix it.

Thomas Tuchel wasn’t hired to steady the ship or guide England to respectable finishes — that part had already been handled. He was brought in for moments exactly like this, when one decision, one stretch of play, could define everything. England got that moment. And Tuchel didn't have the right answers.

For An Hour, Tuchel Got Almost Everything Right

The frustrating part of this loss is that Tuchel actually deserves a lot of credit for getting England into that position in the first place. This wasn’t some vague, long-term hire. When the FA brought him in back in October 2024, it was basically an 18-month sprint straight to this World Cup. No hiding from it. Tuchel talked right away about finishing the job, about turning all those deep runs into an actual trophy and putting a second star on the shirt. And it made sense — this is the guy who took PSG to their first Champions League final, then walked into Chelsea midseason and beat Pep Guardiola’s City for the title a few months later.

England wasn’t looking for another culture reset. Southgate had already done that. He got them to a World Cup semifinal in 2018, a Euro final in 2020 and another in 2024. He made England feel like a serious tournament team again. The only step left was the hardest one: actually winning the thing. That’s why Tuchel was here. Not to build, not to stabilize — to finish.

And for a while against Argentina, it looked like he might actually do it.

His lineup calls all made sense in the moment. Spence over O’Reilly gave England a left back who could actually carry the ball and not just survive. James coming in for Konsa meant a proper fullback on the right again. And Rogers — that was the bold one — ahead of Saka and Madueke, was just a gut call from Tuchel. But in a game that turned into more of a scrap than anything else, Rogers’ physicality and touch fit perfectly.

The first half was messy, borderline chaotic. Nineteen fouls, no shots for half an hour, basically zero attacking rhythm from either side. At halftime, England had 0.05 expected goals and Argentina had 0.03. It wasn’t pretty, but honestly, that wasn’t the point. England made it uncomfortable. They crowded Messi and made every Argentina possession feel like work.

And when the game finally opened up, England actually had a plan.

Kane hit a long ball that forced a bad clearance from Tagliafico, Rice picked it up and quickly moved it wide to Rogers. Rogers delivered a great cross, and Gordon slipped in behind Molina at the back post to finish it. It was exactly what they needed.

England had been leaning so heavily on Kane and Bellingham all tournament that seeing someone else finally put one through felt like a sigh of relief for the rest of the team. They’d scored 12 of the team’s 13 goals coming into this match. Someone else had to step up, and Tuchel’s two wingers made it happen. Rogers created it. Gordon finished it. Argentina’s fullbacks — which had looked shaky — got exposed.

England had the lead. They had the matchups they wanted. The back line looked confident. It felt like they were in control.

And then, slowly, they stopped playing the game that got them there.

England Took Out Their Own Escape Route

Tuchel does have a pretty fair explanation for what came next. England didn’t suddenly decide to sit back the moment he made a change — they were already getting pushed there. Argentina reacted like a team that knew exactly what was slipping away. They threw more bodies forward and started winning the ball back almost instantly. It wasn’t like Tuchel hit a panic button out of nowhere. He saw things starting to tilt and tried to steady it.

The problem is, every tweak meant to help England defend made them worse at everything else. Nicolás González came on in the 64th minute and immediately gave Argentina another problem to throw into the box. Messi found him right away. Pickford had to pull off a brilliant save from González’s header in the 69th minute, and that felt like the loudest possible warning sign. Argentina was getting Messi on the ball, whipping crosses in, and basically asking England to survive one scramble after another.

Tuchel’s response came in the 72nd minute — Gordon off, Konsa on, and they shifted to a 5-3-2. On paper, you can see it. Gordon hadn’t been heavily involved in possession. But that wasn’t really the goal anymore. He was the one guy Argentina still had to respect getting behind them, the same guy Molina had already lost for the goal. Taking him off basically told Argentina, “Go ahead, push up. There’s nothing coming back at you.”

And once that outlet disappeared, England had nowhere to go. Pickford would send it long and Kane was outnumbered. Second balls went nowhere. Rogers tucked inside, Bellingham got dragged deeper, and possession just became a brief pause between Argentina attacks. England had 12% of the ball from the goal to the equalizer. That’s not game management. That’s just hanging on and hoping.

Scaloni, meanwhile, went the other way entirely. He threw on De Paul, Montiel, and Otamendi, then swapped a fullback for Lautaro Martínez. More attackers, more presence in the box, more ways to hurt you. Argentina kept asking new questions. England kept giving the same answer: defend deeper.

It got even more obvious when James and Rice came off a few minutes later. Fair enough, James looked hurt and Rice hadn’t been 100% coming in. But Burn for James and O’Reilly for Rice just doubled down on the same idea. Win headers, clear crosses, trust Pickford to bail you out.

And yeah, that had worked against Mexico. England went down to 10 men, dropped into a 5-3-1 and basically survived a barrage — 52 crosses, 49 clearances, the whole thing. It made sense then. They didn’t have a choice.

This wasn’t that. England still had 11 players, and Argentina isn’t Mexico. Messi was picking passes, Mac Allister was finding gaps, Fernández was lurking for second balls, and Lautaro was waiting for one clean look. Sitting deeper didn’t take anything away from Argentina — it just brought all of their strengths closer to the goal.

The numbers tell the same story your eyes did. Argentina had 64% of the ball, outshot England 14-6, put more on target, won more corners, and kept creating chances. Twenty-six crosses. Pickford made saves, Mac Allister hit the post twice, but there's only so much you can do when you're getting peppered by the highest-scoring offense in the tournament.

The equalizer felt inevitable by the time it came. Messi works a short corner, gets it back, finds Fernández outside the box — bang. Great goal, sure, but it came after 30 straight minutes of England letting Argentina set up camp. Then, seven minutes later, it’s the same pattern again. Mac Allister hits the post, Messi beats O’Reilly for the ball, cross to the back post, Lautaro finishes it with a header.

This Was The Southgate Comparison Tuchel Had To Avoid

There’s nothing inherently cowardly about trying to protect a lead in a World Cup semifinal. This isn’t a style contest, and Argentina absolutely deserves credit for pushing England back before Tuchel even started making changes. Messi did Messi things with two ridiculous assists. Fernández hit one Pickford was never getting to. Lautaro found the one gap five defenders were supposed to close. England was tired, Argentina was excellent, and sometimes a decision that makes sense in the moment just doesn’t work.

What makes this one sting is how early and how completely England leaned into survival mode.

Up to that point, Tuchel had spent the entire tournament looking like he could see things a step ahead of everyone else. Moving Rice to right back against DR Congo, the emergency back five holding up after the red card against Mexico, tweaking the midfield against Norway and finding a way through extra time — it all felt deliberate. Even the hydration breaks turned into timeouts where England came back out looking sharper. That was the whole pitch for Tuchel: clarity, decisiveness, control.

And he knew exactly what people thought England had been missing. Before he even took charge, he talked about how the Euro 2024 team looked more worried about losing than excited about winning. He wanted more aggression, more touches in the box, more moments where England imposed their will instead of waiting. Then they got the lead against Argentina and, almost instantly, became the version of themselves he’d been trying to move away from.

That’s why the Southgate comparison doesn’t feel unfair. England led Croatia in the 2018 semifinal and slowly let it slip. They scored after two minutes in the Euro 2020 final and spent the rest of the night retreating against Italy. Southgate’s teams achieved a lot — more than they usually get credit for — but the lingering criticism was always that, in the biggest moments, England played not to lose instead of pushing to win.

Tuchel was supposed to be the guy who flipped that instinct. His Chelsea teams could defend, sure, but they always had a plan for what came next. His whole reputation is built on reading knockout games and acting decisively when he needs to. On Wednesday, that wasn't the case at all.

To his credit, he didn’t dodge it afterward:

Of course, the responsibility is on the coach and if it doesn't go well, it is easy to say it was wrong... We conceded a lot of chances and we could not turn the ball possession around. We conceded [chances] straight away, we decided to go to a back five because the gaps were far too open. They won every header, they kept crossing and crossing so we went to a back five to close the gaps inside and be strong in the air.

England didn’t lose because Tuchel got the game plan wrong. If anything, the first hour might’ve been his best work of the tournament. They lost because once they got ahead, the mindset shifted from trying to beat Argentina to just trying to hang on.

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