pressure<\/a>, but then defended his switch to a back five, as the structure was intended to \u201cclose gaps\u201d and confront Argentina\u2019s wide players more aggressively.<\/p>\n\u201cWe encouraged everyone to step out and be more active, but we struggled,\u201d he added. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t find any duels.\u201d<\/p>\n
England held 12% possession between Gordon\u2019s goal and Enzo Fernandez\u2019s 85th-minute equalizer, the lowest recorded share for a team leading a World Cup match for at least 10 minutes since 1966. During that period, Argentina completed 160 passes in the attacking third to England\u2019s four and recorded 97.6% field tilt.<\/p>\n
Tuchel replaced Gordon, Declan Rice, and Reece James with defenders Ezri Konsa, Dan Burn, and Nico O\u2019Reilly. Bukayo Saka, Noni Madueke, and Ollie Watkins remained unused. The changes left Harry Kane isolated and removed England\u2019s counterattacking outlet before Lionel Messi assisted Fernandez and Lautaro Martinez.<\/p>\n
UEFA-licensed analysts at Coaches\u2019 Voice found that the back five failed to close England\u2019s shape, with space remaining between midfield and defence as Argentina pushed more players forward.<\/p>\n
Former Premier League manager Alan Pardew argued that Tuchel\u2019s substitutions reinforced a negative mentality, while Kane acknowledged that England tried to protect the lead rather than continue playing.<\/p>\n
The defeat continued England\u2019s record of losing major knockout matches after scoring first. They led Croatia before a 2-1 extra-time defeat in the 2018 World Cup semifinal and opened the scoring against Italy before losing the Euro 2020 final on penalties.<\/p>\n
England have also lost all seven World Cup knockout matches against FIFA top-10 opponents since 1998. Their only successful World Cup semifinal remains the 1966 victory over Portugal, the year they won their sole major men\u2019s trophy.<\/p>\n
The 60-year wait has sustained the \u201cIt\u2019s Coming Home\u201d refrain, taken from the 1996 song Three Lions and revived at every major tournament.<\/p>\n
Tuchel rejected the idea of a curse but acknowledged that England must impose themselves more effectively in decisive matches, and confirmed his intention to remain through Euro 2028.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2026-07-17T14:03:16+00:00 font Enable Reading Mode A- A A+ Shafaq News- Atlanta Thomas Tuchel called for England to change…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":768486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[122488,16993,4,450,9333,451,3,452,453,328123],"class_list":["post-768485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-2026-world-cup","tag-breaking","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-england","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-tuchel-blames-england-dna-for-world-cup-exit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}