Tag: analysis

Still Not Home: England Fumbles Away World Cup Semifinal To Argentina

For 30 minutes, it looked like it might finally happen. But Thomas Tuchel’s tactics turned an attempt to defend a lead into a willing loss of control. Bending your defense out of structure invites pressure, chances and chaos. England weren’t trying to win — they were trying to not lose.

For 30 minutes, it looked like it might finally happen.

After a wonderful connection between Morgan Rogers and Anthony Gordon in 55th minute put England in front of Argentina, 1-0, at the World Cup semifinal in Atlanta, the Three Lions knew what they had to do — spend the next half-hour and change keeping the ball out of their net.

And for 30 agonizing minutes, they succeeded. But it always felt like Argentina were closing in on that elusive equalizer, especially with their attacking subs now in the fold.

On cue, Enzo Fernandez ripped a screamer into the top left corner from about 25 yards out to knot the game in a tie in the 85th minute. And a mere seven minutes later, a picturesque Lionel Messi cross was laid right on the forehead of super sub Lautaro Martinez for the stoppage time winner, sending Argentina back to the World Cup final to defend their title against Spain.

It’s the latest installment in a knockout run littered with drama and late-game comebacks for Argentina, and their resilience deserves to be celebrated. But I can’t help but feel like England lost this game more than the defending champions won it.

Forget the fact that they only took five shots and accumulated a mere 0.53 xG. They got on the board first thanks to a lovely ball from Rogers and a really difficult finish from Gordon. After that, their lone responsibility was defending that lead. Easier said than done, sure, but the manner in which they went about it can be pinpointed as the reason for this result.

England manager Thomas Tuchel almost immediately shifted the shape of his squad, opting to put five men at the back and play as deep as possible to prevent Argentina from scoring. Three defenders were subbed on in a 10-minute span before the equalizer as his squad was consistently playing nine or 10 deep. He probably knew that the blitz was coming, seeing what happened to Egypt in the Round of 16, but the emphasis was on preventing goals, not preventing chances.

Thomas Tuchel will rightfully face a fair share of criticism for his second-half tactics.

But bending your defense out of structure can create its own problems. You invite pressure, you invite chances and you pretty much invite chaos.

England essentially never held any meaningful spells of possession after scoring; they just let Argentina put together attack after attack. By the end of the match, Argentina had 1.84 xG, 64% possession, over 250 more accurate passes, triple the number of shots (15) and four times the amount of touches in England’s box (28). Jordan Pickford kept a couple of attempts out of the net, but he was never going to keep that up until the full time whistle.

The dam was bound to break eventually. And when it did, England were flooded.

It’s one thing to want to defend your lead, it’s another to play on your heels entirely. It felt like Tuchel just let Argentina have their way, putting too much trust in his defense — which hasn’t exactly been the strongest — and living with the results. That’s no way to win a game of this magnitude.

It’s like folding at the river with two kings because you fear the man across from you has pocket aces. You’re not trying to win, you’re trying to not lose.

Still, it doesn’t help that England got nothing offensively from start to finish. Only one big chance in the match, a mere seven touches in the Argentina box and two shots on goal isn’t going to cut it in a World Cup semi. Aside from the long ball that set up the English goal — Harry Kane was virtually nonexistent with just 26 touches, none of which came in the opposing box — and no successful dribbles. Jude Bellingham picked the worst time to turn in his worst shift of the tournament, only garnering a single successful tribble while losing over half (7-of-13) of his ground duels.

Jude Bellingham and England let this one slip away.

Simply put, if you told anyone that Kane and Bellingham would combine for 0.02 xG (all from the former) today, nobody would have picked England to win. As such, they got the result they deserved.

It’s a shame for an English team that inspired so many with their grit and determination all tournament long. And it may have been their best shot at ending their 60-year trophy drought; who knows what Harry Kane’s fitness will be in four years’ time, and England’s best young players not named Jude still have a long way to go. But that’s a story for 2030.

And so we have our matchup in the 2026 World Cup final; La Roja vs. La Albiceleste in a game with no shortage storylines and intricacies that we’ll get into as we get closer to Sunday.

In the meantime, England will play France on Saturday for the proverbial bronze medal of the tournament, living with the devastation that they could have finally brought football home this year.

Spain’s Semifinal Masterclass Proves They’re The Best Team In The World

Dominance at the highest level isn’t frequent, and that makes it all the more emphatic and impressive. It makes you feel something — either awe or envy or even gratitude that you get to witness greatness. Spain just gave us that feeling in spades, proving they are the best footballing nation in the world.

Cover photo taken from NBC News.

It’s fairly easy to ascertain when you’re watching the best in the world at something. Dominance at the highest level isn’t frequent, and that makes it all the more emphatic and impressive. It makes you feel something — either awe or envy or even gratitude that you get to witness greatness.

Spain just gave us that feeling in spades, proving they are the best footballing nation in the world and punching their ticket to their second ever World Cup final with a 2-0 win over France.

An early penalty from Mikel Oyarzabal and a beautiful second-half finish from Pedro Porro provided the Spanish the cushion they needed to seal away the French, who looked as rattled and discombobulated as they ever have under Didier Deschamps.

I said in yesterday’s preview that Spain were more than capable of making France play their brand of football, suffocating them in the midfield and squeezing out their defensive opportunities while making the most of their attacking chances. But I could never have seen that formula come to fruition as prominently as it did on Tuesday afternoon in Arlington.

Though possession and passing totals were near dead even, this felt like one of the more lopsided contests between two squads of such high quality that I can remember. The Spaniards converted their 10 shots into 1.63 xG (helped by the aforementioned penalty) while France accrued a measly 0.30 xG from just as many attempts. They simply looked flustered from the word go, physically and mentally outmatched by the first side to match their intensity at this tournament.

Kylian Mbappe had absolutely nowhere to go with the few chances he had on the ball with just three successful dribbles out of eight, only accruing a drab 0.09 xG. Ousmane Dembele was a ghost until a couple of late brute force shots on net to try and muster up any sort of offense. Michael Olise closed out a brilliant tournament with a whimper, losing possession a whopping 2o times and failing to conjure up a single successful dribble with only 0.07 xA en route to being hooked after 72 minutes. Bradley Barcola essentially did an hour of cardio before being subbed out in the 57th minute.

In short, Spain shrunk one of the greatest attacking units we’ve ever seen into the most miniscule of threats.

Nowhere to run. (h/t Athlon Sports)

It’s a masterclass in midfield management and defensive dominance. Marc Cucurella was outstanding with seven defensive contributions and four tackles while winning four of seven ground duels. Rodri and Fabian Ruiz were infallible as always with a combined 13 defensive contributions, eight tackles, 12-of-19 ground duels won and 4-of-4 aerial duels won (all by Rodri). And Pedro Porro netted the aforementioned dagger in the 58th minute, slipping behind the sleeping French defense after a cheeky give-and-go with Dani Olmo.

It certainly helped that Spain’s attack put in a shift that was par for the course for them at this tournament, if not a little bit better. Oyarzabal continued his scoring ways while Dani Olmo picked up a massive assist and completed 29 of his 30 passes. But most importantly, Lamine Yamal left a much more tangible impact on the wing, winning the first-half penalty and keeping the French fullbacks honest with a couple of really good-looking runs — one of which led to a brilliant goal that was disallowed for a slight offside. It feels like his best is yet to come, and he’s in for a massive performance in the final on Sunday.

He just keeps scoring. (h/t Evening Standard)

France will undoubtedly be doing some soul-searching after having it snatched. This was a classic exposé of their deficiencies in midfield and defense — 90 minutes to completely forget if you’re anyone not named Adrien Rabiot, who didn’t even play the second half on a yellow card. Losing William Saliba to injury after 30 minutes didn’t help, but the seeds were already planted for the back line to be decimated. Lucas Digne in particular will face a healthy dose of criticism for his awful challenge which conceded the penalty and generally poor play.

But this is not all on any one Frenchman. As a collective, it was one of the worst performances they ever could have put together. And that’s why Spain deserve all the flowers for making it happen when it looked like France could and would bulldoze everyone in their path en route to another world championship.

Now, it’s La Roja who fit that description.

I certainly don’t envy England or Argentina. Your prize for grinding out a semifinal win is playing this Spanish team in the final? Sounds more like a punishment.