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England v Argentina | World Cup Semi Final | 15 July 2026
Comments
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Unfortunately, Karoy has already been capped by JamaicaMacronate said:
Mark Douglas of the i Paper.
Not saying I agree and there will be other factors to take into account before then but thought I'd share.13 -
Always wild to see a country of colonisers from Europe, get arsey that someone else got there first.
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Yeah i dont remember this. Would have definitely been shouting at the tv. Bloody.a iguinnessaddick said:
Believe the photo to be fake. Shows Messi stepping on Spence’s right leg, when Spence gets up, he’s limping on his left.Exiled_Addick said:
Has anymore been made of this in coverage back home? If not, I am surprised because it's pretty scandalous, imo..Callumcafc said:
I don't want it to sound like excuses or sour grapes, because I know that it changes nothing about the fundamental flaw that was England's disastrous game management and England were 90% likely to lose that game before it got to penalties, but, if given a second look at this, there's not a referee in the world that wouldn't have overturned the winning goal and awarded a free kick to England.
When you also compare it to the disallowed Egypt goal against Argentina, it looks even worse, plus this was in England's penalty area and basically the next touch of the ball was Messi's assist, not the other end of the pitch to where the goal was scored from like Egypt's.
The biggest difference was the Argentinian rolled around like he'd been shot and Spence tried to play on but the impact and pain of the foul very much limited his ability to follow and close down Messi.
1) refereeing an incident in that fashion, because Spence got up and the Argentinian didn't, only goes to encourage more playacting which is an ever growing cancer at the top the of the game, and 2) as much as I'm not a conspiracies guy, this does absolutely nothing to dispel the theory that Argentina have been engineered a route to the final with the help of preferential refereeing.
I can only believe that either VAR did not review it or they did review and maliciously chose to ignore it despite the clear evidence to the contrary. I simply cannot believe that they would have looked at it and concluded, in good faith, that it wasn't a foul. Either reason raises serious suspicions of collusion or corruption.
The only real debate is whether or not it was enough to send Messi off.
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Tbh we sing about ww2. Is that any better? Both are wrong. Move on.0
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guinnessaddick said:
Believe the photo to be fake. Shows Messi stepping on Spence’s right leg, when Spence gets up, he’s limping on his left.Exiled_Addick said:
Has anymore been made of this in coverage back home? If not, I am surprised because it's pretty scandalous, imo..Callumcafc said:
I don't want it to sound like excuses or sour grapes, because I know that it changes nothing about the fundamental flaw that was England's disastrous game management and England were 90% likely to lose that game before it got to penalties, but, if given a second look at this, there's not a referee in the world that wouldn't have overturned the winning goal and awarded a free kick to England.
When you also compare it to the disallowed Egypt goal against Argentina, it looks even worse, plus this was in England's penalty area and basically the next touch of the ball was Messi's assist, not the other end of the pitch to where the goal was scored from like Egypt's.
The biggest difference was the Argentinian rolled around like he'd been shot and Spence tried to play on but the impact and pain of the foul very much limited his ability to follow and close down Messi.
1) refereeing an incident in that fashion, because Spence got up and the Argentinian didn't, only goes to encourage more playacting which is an ever growing cancer at the top the of the game, and 2) as much as I'm not a conspiracies guy, this does absolutely nothing to dispel the theory that Argentina have been engineered a route to the final with the help of preferential refereeing.
I can only believe that either VAR did not review it or they did review and maliciously chose to ignore it despite the clear evidence to the contrary. I simply cannot believe that they would have looked at it and concluded, in good faith, that it wasn't a foul. Either reason raises serious suspicions of collusion or corruption.
The only real debate is whether or not it was enough to send Messi off.

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Part of me wonders if Tuchel is trying to get himself sacked with some of his idiotic comments. You can see why he doesn’t last five minutes anywhere before falling out with players.
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I don’t actually disagree with the DNA comment, it’s not been a thing to retain possession, it’s getting better in kids football, but we do as a country like the ball played forward quickly0
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The thing about this "Malvinas" banner is that once FIFA sit down and look at it in the context of their own rules they will quite clearly .......... oh .......... hang on. I'm being silly here, aren't I?8
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AgreeRothko said:I don’t actually disagree with the DNA comment, it’s not been a thing to retain possession, it’s getting better in kids football, but we do as a country like the ball played forward quickly
Which is mad when you consider hardly any of the England players in the squad play for anything remotely like direct teams.
For what its worth, when we move the ball quickly I think we look our best and there aren'tmany teams who can live with us. We have the players capable of doing it just for some reason we abandoned that principle after we scored1 -
Jesus you’re a bit slow aren’t you.2121 said:Tbh we sing about ww2. Is that any better? Both are wrong. Move on.
The PLAYERS.
PLAYERS.
PLAAAAAAAYYEEEERRS were guilty of this.
The 10 german bombers thing is not something I would be part of but then again the players on our team would never get involved.4 -
According to the bbc reporter, Fifa areOff_it said:The thing about this "Malvinas" banner is that once FIFA sit down and look at it in the context of their own rules they will quite clearly .......... oh .......... hang on. I'm being silly here, aren't I?
"Assessing the match reports and considering the relevant circumstances"...
Whereas it could trigger a war between war ready, war-mongering nations, and i don't think England /UK are anything like those things in the current era thankfully, I'm expecting fifa to conclude that the Argentinian lads just got a bit carried away in the circumstances of the match, late win, overwhelmed by excitement, influenced by their fans, and nothing to see here.1 -
Just like he did in the 2022 tournament that prevented us from getting knocked out by the French… ohSoundAsa£ said:I admit this opinion is highly sceptical but I seriously believe Harry McGuire would have cleared the cross that led to their winner.
I always thought it was a mistake leaving him back home.
https://x.com/ousman_10/status/2077715787339493623/video/1?s=46
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I think hindsight… what could have been done differently?
- we score, we’ve played probably the perfect game to that point
- the players lose their heads and start going defensive all the way to the hydration break and we’re somewhat lucky to still be ahead
- Tuchel has the opportunity to fix it during the break, bring on some fresh legs and turn the momentum of the match but he chooses to feed both the English fear and Argentina pressure by subbing the pacey winger and goalscorer for a defender
If he had that hydration break back, you’d like to think he’d have approached it differently and instead brought on Watkins for Kane to run at their two centre backs on yellow cards, and maybe someone like Madueke for Rogers so that we have threats in behind on both wings too.4 -
Some of the BBC reports saying players didn't like the tactics make me suspect Tuchel will be gone after the France game. Don't think the FA will waste time if people have lost faith with him with a home tournament coming up3
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Shifting the blame from the manager to the team and indicating it's an England thing is just lame (or rage-baiting). 99% of the footballing world could see, not in hindsight but during the game, that the sub changes were too negative and would ultimately lead to an Argentina goal.I've seen a few Bayern Munich fans' comments saying that they weren't too surprised how the game went because they knew Tuchel is ALWAYS like that, throwing 5 defensive players at the back to try to hold on to lead. It's not the first time that his tactics have cost results.It was really bizarre that the FA extended his contract half a year before this tournament. It's totally understandable that the whole team has lost faith with him. There's no way he's able to continue to work with these players.12
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The one player who wouldn’t pass the CL height test scores with his head.3 -
Still angry. If anyone's got that battleship gif, 'you've been sunk by your own manager would be fine by me'.1
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Someone like Madueke but not madueke hinself whi isnt good enough. Oh if onlh we had a young winger who looked outstanding in our last warm up game to bring on in such circumstances.Callumcafc said:I think hindsight… what could have been done differently?
- we score, we’ve played probably the perfect game to that point
- the players lose their heads and start going defensive all the way to the hydration break and we’re somewhat lucky to still be ahead
- Tuchel has the opportunity to fix it during the break, bring on some fresh legs and turn the momentum of the match but he chooses to feed both the English fear and Argentina pressure by subbing the pacey winger and goalscorer for a defender
If he had that hydration break back, you’d like to think he’d have approached it differently and instead brought on Watkins for Kane to run at their two centre backs on yellow cards, and maybe someone like Madueke for Rogers so that we have threats in behind on both wings too.0 -
Tuchel was paid millions to make the difference and he made decisions at vital moments that allowed Argentina to totally dominate. The World cup holders hate teams running at their defence as was shown by Egypt on numerous occasions leading to 3 goals, even though 1 was disallowed because of a foul in the build up.
Tuchel position is untenable because not only did he waste a fantastic opportunity to get to the final but our world class players in Bellingham and Kane know he screwed up.
His defensive tactics gave Argentina 5 clear cut chances and they took 2 of them as "like bats holding on the crossbar" we retreated so far I thought Pickford was going to end up playing as a false 9 !
Thomas "No Regrets"Tuchel you clown.
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What I'll say and this isn't in defence of Tuchel just me trying to be objective
He, like most football managers will back himself and he has shown he will back himself. Thats great and none of us should expect him to be self-critical in the aftermath. We could all see what happened and what he facilitated.
Also, he will have felt extreme pressure to be the decision maker in the moment, Anthony Barry might have been screaming at him to get some pace on and get the team playing on the front foot but Thomas Tuchel has to be the man and that might have pushed him even further into his trench of "protect what we have" even though I personally think we went about it entirely wrong by inviting pressure and give some decent players a lot of time, space and possession in our own half. I don't see what good sacking him will do, my fear is he won't learn from this game but thats him having to handle a primal, inherited fear so many ither managers have of setting up to not get beat before going to win a game
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Eight of our players in the area four at the back of the goal area and the shortest man in the box gets a free header,thats not bad tactics that is just diabolical defending .guinnessaddick said:
The one player who wouldn’t pass the CL height test scores with his head.6 -
Yeah, players are getting away with a shit performance because of Tuchels tactics.thickandthin63 said:
Eight of our players in the area four at the back of the goal area and the shortest man in the box gets a free header,thats not bad tactics that is just diabolical defending .guinnessaddick said:
The one player who wouldn’t pass the CL height test scores with his head.A lot of them were dire Wednesday2 -
I've watched the replay and Messi makes contact with Spence's right leg, as in the photo. Not sure and don't care what leg he limps on. Not sure if the photo is fake or not, but if they had checked on VAR they could have been certain..guinnessaddick said:
Believe the photo to be fake. Shows Messi stepping on Spence’s right leg, when Spence gets up, he’s limping on his left.Exiled_Addick said:
Has anymore been made of this in coverage back home? If not, I am surprised because it's pretty scandalous, imo..Callumcafc said:
I don't want it to sound like excuses or sour grapes, because I know that it changes nothing about the fundamental flaw that was England's disastrous game management and England were 90% likely to lose that game before it got to penalties, but, if given a second look at this, there's not a referee in the world that wouldn't have overturned the winning goal and awarded a free kick to England.
When you also compare it to the disallowed Egypt goal against Argentina, it looks even worse, plus this was in England's penalty area and basically the next touch of the ball was Messi's assist, not the other end of the pitch to where the goal was scored from like Egypt's.
The biggest difference was the Argentinian rolled around like he'd been shot and Spence tried to play on but the impact and pain of the foul very much limited his ability to follow and close down Messi.
1) refereeing an incident in that fashion, because Spence got up and the Argentinian didn't, only goes to encourage more playacting which is an ever growing cancer at the top the of the game, and 2) as much as I'm not a conspiracies guy, this does absolutely nothing to dispel the theory that Argentina have been engineered a route to the final with the help of preferential refereeing.
I can only believe that either VAR did not review it or they did review and maliciously chose to ignore it despite the clear evidence to the contrary. I simply cannot believe that they would have looked at it and concluded, in good faith, that it wasn't a foul. Either reason raises serious suspicions of collusion or corruption.
The only real debate is whether or not it was enough to send Messi off.
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That certainly is diabolical defending. But it doesn't mean that bad tactics aren't at play as well.thickandthin63 said:
Eight of our players in the area four at the back of the goal area and the shortest man in the box gets a free header,thats not bad tactics that is just diabolical defending .guinnessaddick said:
The one player who wouldn’t pass the CL height test scores with his head.1
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