{"id":898826,"date":"2026-09-17T05:58:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T05:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/898826\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T05:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T05:58:13","slug":"my-scar-not-your-scar-tuchel-stands-by-england-semi-final-subs-but-admits-wrong-timing-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/898826\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018My scar, not your scar\u2019: Tuchel stands by England semi-final subs but admits wrong timing | England"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thomas Tuchel stands by his heavily criticised defensive substitutions in the World Cup semi-final defeat against Argentina<\/a> this summer, but the England head coach accepts he made them too early.<\/p>\n

Tuchel said England were \u201cwaiting for death\u201d, unable to cope with the attacking tactics adopted by Argentina in Atlanta as they chased the game after Anthony Gordon\u2019s opener on the hour. He said fatigue and the success of defending with a back five in knockout games against Mexico<\/a> and Norway<\/a> also influenced his decisions to sit on the lead.<\/p>\n

That approach proved catastrophic as goals from Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez and Lautaro Mart\u00ednez in the final stages of the game ended England\u2019s dreams of making a first World Cup final since 1966.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can try to kill me here. But it\u2019s my scar, it\u2019s not your scar,\u201d Tuchel said in a documentary on the England app. \u201cNo one is more hurt than me, no one wanted it more. They can endlessly torture you and think: \u2018If I had done different substitutions, then we would have won the match.\u2019 You just don\u2019t know it.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course you could [have made attacking changes]. No one knows what would have happened. We could have done it and maybe lost 2\u20111 and could have gone: \u2018Is he crazy? He finished the game against Norway with a back five, why didn\u2019t he finish the game with five?\u2019 I think from what I saw and the experience, the information and the level of craziness Argentina<\/a> put in \u2013 change after change after change, it was just one offensive change after the other. That was my solution to the problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what the intervention of a coach is. I try to help, you don\u2019t implement anything for your ego or whatever. You just try to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jordan Pickford is beaten by Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s shot for Argentina\u2019s first goal. Photograph: Agust\u00edn Marcarian\/Reuters<\/p>\n

England were on the back foot after scoring, with Djed Spence making a last-ditch tackle and Jordan Pickford making a big save immediately before the hydration break. It was then when Tuchel made his ill-fated decision to replace the goalscorer Gordon with the defender Ezri Konsa.<\/p>\n

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The German, who faced calls to be sacked in the aftermath of the semi-final defeat, insists the opposition\u2019s gung-ho tactics forced his hand. \u201cArgentina then play very, very quickly. Sorry for the language, [they played] fuck-it football: \u2018We have nothing to lose. Let\u2019s fuck it.\u2019 A key moment if I look back at it and what happened to my decision-making, we conceded a big, big chance right before the water break. And I thought: \u2018We will not survive. This is waiting for death. We don\u2019t have ball possession, we\u2019re not defending good, we\u2019re not defending properly in our 4-4-2. We need help.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI changed to a 5-3-2, we changed the structure. Because I believe we can handle the width better and we still have three central defenders in the middle if crosses still fly in. We changed then to a 5-4-1. Even my mindset is maybe like: \u2018Let\u2019s just overcome it.\u2019 And it\u2019s too early. Too early for that mindset.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thomas Tuchel stands by his heavily criticised defensive substitutions in the World Cup semi-final defeat against Argentina this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":898827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-898826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}