Thomas Tuchel insisted public opinion will not force him to quit as England manager, as he made a passionate defence of his decisions in the World Cup semi-final.
Tuchel has been under fire for his tactics and substitutions in the 2-1 defeat to Argentina when his team dropped deep after taking the lead.
But the England head coach said at a press conference in Miami on Friday that he has no regrets over his in-game changes and pointed to a gap in expectations of winning compared to other countries such as Argentina, Spain and France.
When asked if public opinion could make him change his mind on taking England forward to the next European Championships, Tuchel said: “[I would] never change my thinking if I would like to carry on.”
Tuchel signed a new deal before the World Cup, taking him through to Euro 2028, and he also received backing from the Football Association immediately after the crushing Atlanta defeat.
He said this squad will be scarred by this defeat to Lionel Messi and his team-mates, although says he is ready to challenge the elite countries as an underdog. But they will start rebuilding – starting with the Bronze Final against France in Miami – with scars from their semi-final loss.
“I take responsibility. If it’s easier, if someone takes the blame, I take the blame. It’s not a problem,” Tuchel said. “This is the deal that you sign up for, as I understand it. But I will not engage in this kind of game.
“I view them in the same way that we were too passive. We got too passive. If you are asking if I regret my decision, if this is the question, no, I don’t regret my decisions because I felt that we became too passive.
“I took a decision, trusting my instinct, my intuition, my experience, trusting my competitiveness, and I took the decision in order to help the team and get the result. We didn’t get the result, so I take personal responsibility for these decisions. I would regret if I didn’t help. I would regret if we didn’t react. But I have no regrets over the decision itself.
“We have to live with this. So it’s our pain, my pain, and the players’ pain. We feel the most pain of all, and it is our scar that we carry now. It is a very painful defeat, and we have to live with this defeat first and foremost. Not the critics, not the experts, not our family members who suffer as well with us and want only the best for us, but it’s basically us.”