England’s problem at major tournaments? They’re still just too English
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When Thomas Tuchel was appointed as England manager, the question was whether he would manage like an actual foreign coach — or like the foreign coaches who came before him.
Why? Well, the confusing thing about England’s two previous dalliances with foreign coaches is that they managed like Englishmen. Both Sven-Goran Eriksson and Fabio Capello largely played 4-4-2 with Emile Heskey up front.
Furthermore, while Sarina Wiegman clearly attempted to change England’s philosophy when appointed to the women’s side, her England have become increasingly old-school. She grew increasingly irritated by her players’ go-to phrase, “proper England!” at last summer’s European Championship, as they increasingly found themselves dominated and relying on big tackles, against her wishes.
Tuchel seemed likely to bring something new: the tactical sophistication he was renowned for in Germany and the understanding of English football from his European Cup-winning spell with Chelsea. But England have been eliminated from the 2026 World Cup in a familiar way, similar to World Cup 2018 and Euro 2020. They started positively and went ahead. Then they invited pressure and lost the tie.
The common consensus is that Tuchel invited that pattern in the 2-1 defeat to Argentina with defensive-minded substitutions but can that be the sole answer when it’s such a standard England pattern? Here, by way of balance, is a partial defence of Tuchel’s approach at 1-0 up.
First, England retreated significantly before Tuchel turned to his bench. This wasn’t necessarily a conscious tactical decision. They were seemingly tired from pressing aggressively early on — far more than they’ve done in previous matches — and on the back of draining matches in Mexico City and Miami.
Argentina, as they tend to do, suddenly started playing as soon as they needed a goal. It’s difficult to think of another successful football side that is so affected by a change of game state, for better or worse.
Before Tuchel’s changes, Argentina had introduced Nico Gonzalez — a proper left winger — for holding midfielder Leandro Paredes. Their newfound width completely changed the game. Gonzalez got in behind England down the left twice within five minutes.
In trying to cope with him, Anthony Gordon or sometimes Morgan Rogers — and sometimes both — ended up as additional defenders. Here, before any changes, England are in a back six.
So Tuchel, who always substitutes his wingers after roughly an hour, decided to withdraw Gordon and bring on an extra defender, Ezri Konsa. This was later than usual for his first change (72 minutes) and meant England were now permanently in a back five — and at least there were three proper centre-backs to defend the box, while Reece James and Djed Spence were natural wing-backs.
“We needed a back five to close the gaps for all the crossing, to have more width because they play with two wide wingers and two strikers, so they had four players on the last line,” Tuchel explained to ITV after the game. “So it made sense to have five players in the last line.”
The next problem, though, was that Bellingham was now (vaguely) playing the left-sided role in England’s midfield quartet, and didn’t have the energy to close down. This zone was very open. Not only was Lionel Messi popping up there (his ball for Gonzalez’s header had brought a superb save from Jordan Pickford), Rodrigo De Paul’s crossing was very dangerous — twice in the space of a minute, his balls in behind found Alexis Mac Allister running in late to head at goal. One effort hit the post, the other was straight at Pickford.
Tuchel didn’t make any further defensive changes until Argentina brought on Lautaro Martinez, an extra striker, in Lionel Scaloni’s last roll of the dice. And he only did so because James went down injured after taking a kick to the thigh, and because Rice — who had been ill all week — probably couldn’t last any longer. Dan Burn, considering his performance in Mexico City, was a reasonable replacement for James. Konsa is hardly a natural right-back but England needed someone to defend those deep balls to Gonzalez, who stopped causing problems.
The more controversial move was bringing on Nico O’Reilly for Rice to play on the left of midfield. O’Reilly is now considered a left-back but he did play to the left of midfield for a couple of months at Manchester City last season, and England needed someone to perform a defensive job in that precise zone. After a minute on the pitch, he sprinted 40 yards forward to win a tackle — he was helping to defend that zone proactively.
What is undeniable is that Tuchel was putting all his eggs in the ‘keep it at 1-0’ basket. There was no out-ball to offer a counter-attacking threat to relieve the pressure. And, almost in a reverse of the 2-1 win over DR Congo, if England conceded one, they’d probably concede another.
The first Argentina goal was from a short corner played to the edge of the box. England were too deep and open on the edge of the box, but this was a set-piece situation.
Now England were in trouble: making attacking changes when under such pressure would have been difficult. They probably had to try to ride out the storm.
The winner was related to a couple of knocks: John Stones was down with a head injury a couple of minutes before and he didn’t jump high enough to clear the ball before Martinez headed home, while Spence hurt himself seconds before the goal and couldn’t get out to close down.
The strange thing is that O’Reilly again did his job fairly well: we’ve heard 20 years of ‘don’t let Messi inside onto his left foot!’, so O’Reilly ushered him down the outside onto his right. Sadly for England, he’s quite good with his right, too.
“We weren’t physical enough,” said Tuchel afterward. “It’s not a matter of structure… we got too passive, and we got punished for that.”
There is, of course, an entirely reasonable argument that Tuchel’s changes were to blame: he left his team without an attacking threat and no ability to relieve the pressure.
But ultimately, this is what England do. England almost always lead at some point in the knockout match they’re eliminated in: over the last 30 years, this has happened in 1996 against Germany, 1998 against Argentina, 2002 against Brazil, 2004 against Portugal, 2016 against Iceland, 2018 against Croatia and 2021 against Italy. Many of the missing years are tournaments where England didn’t reach the knockout stage (2000, 2008, 2014) or 0-0s (2006, 2012). England almost always start well with a burst of energy, then are pinned back and concede too much pressure, whether because of tiredness, tactical naivety or the simple inability to keep possession under pressure.
Before the win over Norway, Tuchel was asked a question in a press conference about whether, as a foreign coach, he was trying to change England’s identity. “I’m not sure if I’m trying to change the identity,” he said. “I’m trying to support the players and to build a platform for them to show their qualities. You can see in this World Cup campaign: we can play front-foot football, we can be aggressive, we like to be active.”
But doing all that successfully would constitute a change in identity. The trouble was that Tuchel couldn’t get his players to do it sustainably.
As always, when a foreign coach is in charge of England, it’s less about the players adjusting to the desires of the manager and more about the manager adjusting to the tendencies of the players.