Wayne Rooney warned us. After England defeated Mexico at the Azteca, popular opinion was that it was a tactical masterstroke, partly heroic. He proved that Thomas Tuchel had built a ‘fraternity’. England weathered a tense atmosphere, survived the high ground and regrouped after Jarel Kwansa’s red card. Jude Bellingham was brilliant, Anthony Gordon was indomitable and Dean Byrne’s forehead should be England’s next captain.
But Rooney was not convinced by Tuchel’s approach. In the 74th minute, with the score at 3-2 and down to 10 men, England effectively abandoned all attacking threat. Byrne replaced Elliott Anderson for some penalty box ballast; England reformed into a 5-3-1 formation and then spent the rest of the game defending for their lives.
They did so brilliantly, and Rooney credited the players for that. “They showed attitude, drive, desire – everything you want an England team to show, they showed tonight,” the former England captain said on BBC Sport. “We were the better team until the red card and then we showed a lesson in taking the ball out of the box and stopping shots – absolutely brilliant.”
But with overtime, it was effectively half an hour of wall-to-wall, anywhere-at-will defence. England stopped passing the ball, stopped attacking Mexico’s goal. And for all their stubborn resistance, it was Mexico’s failure to read the situation that froze the scoreline. Mexico dragged crosses into the box instead of pulling England’s defenders out of position to create pockets of space, as if they hadn’t seen the 6ft 7in Geordie now towering over Raul Jimenez.
“I thought it was a bit early to admit, ‘We’re not going to have the ball at all,'” explained Rooney. “We defended the box brilliantly, but I think Mexico played into our hands by putting balls in the box and letting us go out, Pickford coming in and punching out and taking the pressure off his teammates. I think if Mexico had played more around the box and tried to get us to the ball, it would have been more difficult.
Tuchel repeated the tactic in the 72nd minute of England’s semi-final against Argentina.
Fast-forward a few weeks, and Tuchel repeated the tactic in the 72nd minute of England’s semi-final against Argentina. The game-changing replacement this time around was Ezri for Anthony Gordon. There was no red card, no scene that required a panic button. But England dropped back to a deep 5-4-1 and once again abandoned all notions of scoring, all pretence of attacking football. For reasons Tuchel himself could not clearly explain, England emptied the attacking half of the pitch.
That made Argentina’s task fairly straightforward. Like Mexico, they no longer have to worry about defending. It also happened against Norway, in the quarter-finals, when Bern had about 12 minutes left to play. And while Norway and Mexico failed to force England out of their defensive cocoon, Argentina succeeded.
Lionel Messi realised where the space was: on the left flank of England’s newly narrow midfield. From there, he wreaked havoc, and where Mexico and Norway put balls into the box, Messi lifted delicate balls over the heads of teammates and laid in simple passes after sucking off defenders. Enzo Fernandez thus had the chance to score Argentina’s equaliser.
Then he was tearing down the right side of the box towards the byline, England’s defence split and spread, and Lautaro Martinez’s headed cross was sublime, leaving the substitute with a goal he couldn’t miss.
There were other problems when England were under pressure in this tournament. Tuchel’s reluctance to replace Harry Kane and Bellingham meant that when he was defending Leeds, in situations where Ollie Watkins or Marcus Rashford were needed, he had virtually no counter-attack.
And this trend is not a new phenomenon. England have been resting their feet on winning scorelines since records began. At Euro 2000, England dominated Portugal for 20 minutes, went 2-0 up, and then retreated to the edge of their own box, inviting Luis Figo and his teammates to take pot shots, a strategy that was little less than giving the greatest player of all time the chance to unlock a stationary defence for half an hour.
Tuchel was hired to end the cycle.
Instead, the England players will now be number four, jet off to North America and spend the summer being told by friends, family, agents and clubmates that the manager cost them the World Cup.
Perhaps the statement is a small understatement; perhaps it is an approach guided by the benefit of hindsight, by the end result. But the same could be said of Mexico’s reaction to the game: England received waves of praise for their defensive bravery, while Mexico failed to score. Meanwhile, Ronnie unravels the finer details of the game, sounds the alarm, and no one listens to him.
