World Cup 2026

[sockeye]

It’s England yeah but this year really felt like it was going to be our year. Struggling to process it to be honest. We’ve had a great run the last few tournaments but always come undone at the end. Our squad is getting slightly weaker, but when Kane’s gone we will be a damn sight weaker and than isn’t far off. Heartbreaking. 

Edited 1 hour ago by sockeye

[Saint Scott]

A painful way to go out, but easily summarised for me.

We wait all tournament to play on the counter with our attacking players. Instead, Tuchel parks the bus with over 30 minutes to play. 

Argentinas prayers answered, allowing the best football player of all time to have bags of space and freedom to express himself. 

It was inevitable.

[Elmore Saint]

I accept that finishing 3rd or 4th is a par score for where we are ranked.

I can't accept that we went 1 up and then just shat ourselves. For all that Kane is saying that the instruction was to continue to go forward, the subs Tuchel made spoke differently. The game was ours for the taking and we gave it away with a whimper. 

 

[BotleySaint]

You always meet that chippy non-football person who says "Ah well, at least you made the semi final!!" with false enthusiasm. Like that's meant to make you feel better..... 

[Football Special]

Disappointing, reminded me a bit of our fa cup semi final defeat to Man City 

Cant really argue with the result overall but we'd been allowed to dream and get our hopes up. 

Been a shit world cup overall, just a shame the stadiums were so full justifying FIFAs disgusting prices 

[Osvaldorama]

Exactly…If he was positive with his subs, absolutely no one would be complaining at losing. 
 

Theres no shame going out in the semis to the world champions. The shame comes from the cowardly pathetic decisions that he made, and I want him gone ASAP. 

[Sheaf Saint]

22 minutes ago, aintforever said:

We went too passive before he made the subs. I didn't agree with taking Gordon off for a defender, I would have stuck Saka on and tried to hit them on the break but fact is, a top side would have seen the game out.

If the team has gone too passive after taking a lead, then it is the manager's job to identify that and make the right subs and tactical tweaks to overcome it. 

He utterly failed to do that and his subs made our shape and organisation into a disjointed mess that only exacerbated the problem. 

That is 100% on Tuchel.

[Turkish]

38 minutes ago, aintforever said:

I don't agree with his subs but a top team would have seen the game out. 

 

41 minutes ago, aintforever said:

Classic English response, blame the manager. If it's not the manager it's because the Premier League play too many games, or we are not teaching the kids right etc etc.

There always has to be an excuse, it can't possibly be that we are just not good enough at football.

 

31 minutes ago, aintforever said:

We went too passive before he made the subs. I didn't agree with taking Gordon off for a defender, I would have stuck Saka on and tried to hit them on the break but fact is, a top side would have seen the game out.

Dont blame the manager, but at the same time saying you didn't agree with anything he did in the last 30 minutes. Classic Aintclever 😂

[trousers]

It's almost as if people are taking the bait of an obvious contrarian....

[Hawkswood]

51 minutes ago, Turkish said:

We don’t sit at the top table. Were the Newcastle, Spurs, Aston Villa or Everton of internationals. However we had enough to beat Argentina, the last 30 minutes played right into their hands. We only had 12% possession because we had so many defenders on and no outlet when we did get it forward, that’s on Tuchel. 

Even before we had all the defenders on they were swarming all over us. He had to make a choice and made the decision that has worked in the past.  We simply dont have the type of player that has the same type of technical ability that the argies or Spanish have who can take a touch, find space and release pressure. Again, just how i see it.

[Streaky]

1 minute ago, Hawkswood said:

Even before we had all the defenders on they were swarming all over us. He had to make a choice and made the decision that has worked in the past.  We simply dont have the type of player that has the same type of technical ability that the argies or Spanish have who can take a touch, find space and release pressure. Again, just how i see it.

Bollocks, nothing in the game intill we scored then tuchel done a Southgate and decided to defend the box for the rest of the game which doesn't work against trams like them. He fucked up.

[Hawkswood]

1 minute ago, Streaky said:

Bollocks, nothing in the game intill we scored then tuchel done a Southgate and decided to defend the box for the rest of the game which doesn't work against trams like them. He fucked up.

Agreed, nothing in the game till we scored, then Scaloni made some great tactical changes that we simply couldnt cope with. Anyway, as always its about perception.

[skintsaint]

Fabregas nails it here....and exactly what happened.

 

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1602713398107011

[Saint NL]

Kick Tuchel out today and let Jordan Henderson manage the third place play off. He'll need help putting the cones out while he has only one arm.

[sadoldgit]

8 minutes ago, Osvaldorama said:

Exactly…If he was positive with his subs, absolutely no one would be complaining at losing. 
 

Theres no shame going out in the semis to the world champions. The shame comes from the cowardly pathetic decisions that he made, and I want him gone ASAP. 

I don’t disagree that he made tactical errors after we scored but he has to be given credit for taking a slightly above average team to the semi finals of the World Cup. We rode our luck in the earlier rounds and that was always going to run out. Several posters made the pont that we were the fourth best team in the semis, and so it proved. Yes, he has overall responsibility for the loss, but he should also be given credit for getting that far in the first place. Better teams than us went out in earlier rounds.

[sadoldgit]

21 minutes ago, Streaky said:

Bollocks, nothing in the game intill we scored then tuchel done a Southgate and decided to defend the box for the rest of the game which doesn't work against trams like them. He fucked up.

Not true though. Argentina showed signs of stepping up a gear before we scored. In the first half they seemed content to put us off our stride with lots of niggly fouls. They came out in the second half and started to play football. They did the same against Egypt and will probably to the same against Spain. They were written off early on as too old and past it. Clearly they are not.

As for us, did anyone really think we would make the semis before a ball was kicked in this competition? 

What did Lineker say about Tuchel? “60% genius, 40% psychopath.”  I think we have seen that over the last few weeks!
 

 

Edited 38 minutes ago by sadoldgit

[saintant]

After we scored we should have kept two wingers high up the pitch and Kane at centre forward with Bellingham as the link to give Argentina reason to fear a counter attack. Rice and Anderson protecting plus the back four in place was a better bet than 11 back and booting the ball knowing it's coming straight back at us. 

With 11 back we didn't even defend sensibly which was demonstrated by the fact that Argentina still had acres of space down both flanks to enable them to put dangerous crosses in. Again we didn't defend those crosses with 5'9" MacAllister winning numerous headers in the centre of goal. All the while Messi was patrolling and pulling the strings. Quite simply England scored then turned into headless chickens and played the remainder of the game exactly how Argentina would have wanted.

Edited 23 minutes ago by saintant

[Sheaf Saint]

[Turkish]

41 minutes ago, Hawkswood said:

Even before we had all the defenders on they were swarming all over us. He had to make a choice and made the decision that has worked in the past.  We simply dont have the type of player that has the same type of technical ability that the argies or Spanish have who can take a touch, find space and release pressure. Again, just how i see it.

We have them going forward, Palmer, Foden, Grealish a few years ago were these sort of player that we dont use properly. In this tournament we went for pace and strength as usual instead then didn't use it properly.

What we've lack for years is that controlling central midfield player, a player that can dictate the tempo, do the simple things well, keep the ball moving etc. Michael Carrick was the nearest thing we've had to that in recent years and IMO should have been the first name on Englands team sheet in those days.  We dont seem to like those sort of players when we have them they get labelled as boring, sideways & backwards type players because they're not spectacular, exciting players who score goals and create chance after chance.

[Wurzel]

The last 25 minutes needed someone fast - probably Saka - on the pitch and told to stay on the halfway line and chase every clearance. No way would he have been left unmarked so 1 or 2 fewer in attack for our defence to deal with. And any ball he successfully chased you can almost guarantee he'd have been fouled, breaking their momentum and ensuring the ball wasn't coming straight back every time. 

 

Edited 7 minutes ago by Wurzel