England v Argentina | World Cup Semi Final | 15 July 2026

carly burn

And to think he had the audacity to bemoan the low blocks of Ghana and Dr Congo!
"Come up against an attacking side and you'll see the best of us" He said.
But what transpires against such teams?
Low blocks of epic proportions and not a lot else! 
Fellas a fraud who's been riding on Gareth Southgates coat tails the same way he rode on Lampards at Chelsea. 

soapboxsam

ValleyGary said:

Na I think it’s the first time I’m not blaming the players. The shift in tactics was wholly on the manager. Got absolutely no problem with any of the boys on the pitch.

I agree.
Tuchel got the tactics wrong and must take the blame for not going like for like with his subs.
I won't sleep tonight because of this.
I can take losing late in tournaments but not when you take a lead and then play tactics that the opposition want you to play 🤦🏻‍♂️
We scored in the 55th minute not 85th; They created 5 good chances when we just defended and no one can be surprised they scored 2 goals from their 5 efforts.

Argentina weren't Norway, Mexico or Paraguay, how could he get it so wrong after 55 minutes and take off our best player at closing down ?

ValleyGary

soapboxsam said:

ValleyGary said:

Na I think it’s the first time I’m not blaming the players. The shift in tactics was wholly on the manager. Got absolutely no problem with any of the boys on the pitch.

I agree.
Tuchel got the tactics wrong and must take the blame for not going like for like with his subs.
I won't sleep tonight because of this.
I can take losing late in tournaments but not when you take a lead and then play tactics that the opposition want you to play 🤦🏻‍♂️
We scored in the 55th minute not 85th; They created 5 good chances when we just defended and no one can be surprised they scored 2 goals from their 5 efforts.

Argentina weren't Norway, Mexico or Paraguay, how could he get it so wrong after 55 minutes and take off our best player at closing down ?

Well we agree on that mate. Absolutely gutted.

Still, we got 10 months coming up of watching the same thing so that’s good.

sam3110

ValleyGary said:

This is what we lost too 🤢

I thought politicial statements were banned in tournaments and football? 

Get the stupid little c***s thrown out on a technicality 

Crispywood

Genuinely think Nathan Jones would have progressed further in this tournament than Tuchel 

EastTerrace

Regardless of the tactical decisions you need to defend properly. We didn’t.

How many long range shots have we seen at The Valley  not shut down. They even had a warning

.

killerandflash

Extraordinary that the Argentinian players feel it's acceptable to wave around such banners at a World Cup semi final. Indeed I'm amazed it didn't kick off in the stands after that. 20 years ago it would have.

wolfgang

Tuchel has achieved something that Southall never did in 10 years. Got England to a Final. The Bronze Final. 

Tavern

Was at the game.
I hope Spain smash them!

Callumcafc

Coming around to Pickford being a little bit suspect with his positioning for the equaliser. 

Stats say that it was just a 0.04 xG chance, and only 0.06 xGOT, suggesting that such a shot on target would only result in a goal 1 in every 16 attempts.

SDAddick

Gutted. I'm so sorry. 

Callumcafc

CL_Phantom

ValleyGary said:

Imagine Kane holding up a banner saying two world wars and one World Cup.

Theyre absolutely classless humans and their fans encourage it. 

Awful nation.

The fact the Latin girl adjacent has been cheering every South American nation BUT Argentina says it all about how they're viewed.

Absolutely nobody likes them, and very much hated within their own continent.  Apart from the utterly scummy football following they have a massive superiority attitude towards the others.

oohaahmortimer

They didn’t want to play much football until we went in front 
just getting away with their usual filthy play unreal we got the first card when that filthy prick Sineone had made about 5 fouls previous to that .
but to invite them on as we did and everyone could see it was coming was criminal but we should still have the nous to be able to close down the short corner they’d done previously.
also old alligator arms in goal has to do better for that long range shot by moving his feet that was a good yard plus inside the post (thanks Callum for the xg numbers on that )
more gutted than I expected but as is said , it’s the hope that kills you and for once I had some .
cant wait for next season to end already 

CAFCsayer

That is totally on Tunchel... fuck him off now and get Pep in and give him 4 years to drill in his style of play for the next world cup and we win it

SuedeAdidas

You can blame Pickford all you like, but that was (I think) the third time where we were oblivious to a short corner leaving them 2 on 1 with our full back. One of those 2 being Messi. 

We got away with it twice but that is schoolboy stuff. 

Gordon for Konsa (in isolation) has to be up there with one of the worst substitutions that I can remember.
A tactical capitulation of the sort that this appointment was meant to stop. 

guinnessaddick

Problem is the seeding, firstly in qualifying for the WC, then the groups at the WC, then they come up against a decent team and they don’t know how to play the game, as they are only used to playing lesser teams.

Alwaysneil

We looked weak at the back all tournament and our bench options werent good enough. Even with these mistakes in personnel, we still should have won. 

As all have said, trying to defend so deep against quality attacking is only going to end one way, we all know that, people who know even less about football know that and so should Tuchel. 

MuttleyCAFC

Had to sleep on that. I have never felt so let down an betrayed by a manager in my life. I was happy with the defensive display against Mexico as we were down to 10 men and playing with the odds against us. And indeed they lacked the offensive quality that Argentina possess. I didn't expect what I saw yesterday. After going up with lesss than 20 minutes of normal time to go, of course Argentina were going to change tactics and take risks. You have to accept it and see the opportunity in it. They are an average side overall but a top side if you let them attack you with impunity as England (Tuchel) did.

As a manager, you have to have the balls to react in a positive way. We were getting warnings as well and Tuchel decided to take off Gordon for Konsa and Rice for Burn.I don't blame the players, this sends entirely the wrong message to them. The ball kept coming back of course and the risk Argentina took in chasing the game became no risk at all. When you are playing a side like them, you are basically saying you are free to play to your strengths and we won't stop you.

What should Tuchel have done? Well Rashford should have been brought on and asked to play from the centre circle. That then occupies defenders and gives us an outlet. That is the bare minimum, Really he should have also kept Gordon on and if he had nothing left, probably Madueke. That would have pushed them back a bit and if it didn't we would have threatened them constantly on the break. You have to react to the situation, the manager who has gone behind has to as they are going out, the manager who has gone ahead has to as the manager that has gone behind has. After that, I would cancel Tuchel's contract and give it to a positive manager. You don't need a top club manager but you need a brave one. Rooney might be worth a go for instance but whoever you choose you make it clear that gutless cowards need not apply. If we had lost doing that we would have accepted it.

Maybe the job forces negativity as it is too big. We were told Tuchel would not be like Southgate but yesterday I think Southgate may have reacted differently if he learned anything from 2018 and 2021. It may be annoying but if you go a goal up, opponents are going to react. To sit deep and play to their strengths is criminal. England can just F off until the next tournament as far as I am concerned. And Tuchel can just F off full stop!

AberystwythAddick

Personally I wouldn’t even let him manage the third place game

CAFCsayer

Alwaysneil said:

We looked weak at the back all tournament and our bench options werent good enough. Even with these mistakes in personnel, we still should have won. 

As all have said, trying to defend so deep against quality attacking is only going to end one way, we all know that, people who know even less about football know that and so should Tuchel. 

Bench options were weak, but not weak enough to make an excuse for taking off our main outlet and putting on Ezri Konsa... We lost last night because of Tunchel, not due to our squad 

The Red Robin

CAFCsayer said:

That is totally on Tunchel... fuck him off now and get Pep in and give him 4 years to drill in his style of play for the next world cup and we win it

Pretty obvious Pep was going to quit City this summer and we hand Tuchel a two-year extension.

MuttleyCAFC

I don't have a problem with how we played up to our goal either. But the minute we scored it, we lost the game. How is that right?

Gribbo

First person I meet who says - "Yeah, but he's got us to a World Cup semi final" - is getting glassed

MrOneLung

The substitutions were wrong but not sure why the players are not getting pelters as well. 

I don’t think Tuchel told them to all drop back 10 metres as soon as we scored. 

Or for Kane to become a CDM 

All before the game was hearing about dominance at set pieces as Argentina were a small team, yet we couldn’t defend crosses into the box. 

The players went negative well before Tuchel did. 

Alwaysneil

CAFCsayer said:

Alwaysneil said:

We looked weak at the back all tournament and our bench options werent good enough. Even with these mistakes in personnel, we still should have won. 

As all have said, trying to defend so deep against quality attacking is only going to end one way, we all know that, people who know even less about football know that and so should Tuchel. 

Bench options were weak, but not weak enough to make an excuse for taking off our main outlet and putting on Ezri Konsa... We lost last night because of Tunchel, not due to our squad 

He also chose the squad. But i agree even with the limited options available, anyone could see the changes he made were going to make it much harder to get a result.

To be clear, i absolutely blame him. 

Laddick01

Watched their first goal again. 

Somehow we let them take a short corner in the 86th minute without even noticing.

We let their one of their best long shot takers sit completely unmarked on the edge of the box. Bellingham is the only player that even tries to press him but it’s too late.

The shot itself is barely in the corner of the goal. Pickford surely could’ve done better with that.

We then don’t even try and change our shape having seen that it isn’t going to work.

A real shocking goal. 

Even 12 hours on it’s hard to believe that a manager with Tuchel’s credentials got that so so wrong.  

cfgs

Southgate didn't react to games ebbing away from us and was a bit defensive, these were my thoughts, but after last night he seemed like Ardiles in charge of Spurs.

MuttleyCAFC

MrOneLung said:

The substitutions were wrong but not sure why the players are not getting pelters as well. 

I don’t think Tuchel told them to all drop back 10 metres as soon as we scored. 

Or for Kane to become a CDM 

All before the game was hearing about dominance at set pieces as Argentina were a small team, yet we couldn’t defend crosses into the box. 

The players went negative well before Tuchel did. 

Tuchel effectively did by his subs! Argentina just kept bringing forwards on.

DennisBooth

Argentinas subs won them the game. Our Subs lost us the game.