We will be waking up this morning as the French woke up yesterday morning, wondering what happened to our hopes. I am old enough to remember winning a world cup final but also a lifetime of falling short.
I do not have to repeat what every football expert tells me. Every football fan and those who are fans for the world cup could see what happened.We gave up thinking we were better to Argentina and Argentina stepped into the gap in our confidence. It was not the goals that they scored but the goals that they didn’t aim to score that made us cry out with rage. Why did we have 11 men behind the ball when they had Messi and crew with the ball at their feet?
The answer is of course that it was Tuchel’s decision. Tuchel’s unique selling point when he succeeded Sir Gareth Southgate was the idea he would win matches his predecessor could not. That he would not be gripped by the caution Southgate was criticised for when losing the last two Euros finals to Italy and Spain, as well as the 2018 World Cup semi-final to Croatia.
This was a “mentality” thing and our mentality was to get lucky and hold on and everyone could see it would not work. Even if we had held on , we would arrived at the final on the back foot, a team and nation lucky to be there. Once again we did not show the mentality to win the tournament and we lost yet another semi-final.
The two teams who will be playing on Sunday night will be Spain and Argentina, teams that were positive to the end and full of a mentality fired by self belief. Both France and England can blame our manager if we like but in the end it was a problem with the players.
Here is the joy of sport, it rewards a certain kind of play and a certain mindset and this tournament has been brilliant in finding the four teams who consistently have displayed a winning attitude. We fell short , lost our nerve and we now will have to wait four years to try again.
I take my hat off to Spain and Argentina and look forward to the final with the satisfaction that it is the best teams that have made it there. My heart goes out to my team , they know what happened that meant they had no place in the final.
At least they’ve found a left back. Anderson and Gordon fully established themselves as internationals. Rogers showed progress. It was good to see Stones again.
I suppose you could say that hoping to win the trophy while trying to rely on good players who were ill or unfit – James, Rice, Saka – was a BIG ASK.
Presumably Tuchel has learned which players he doesn’t really want in his squad for the Euros – Mainoo, Foden, Maguire, Chalobah, Madueke. Is Radford worth persevering with? (Probably not.) Too early to rule out Eze?
How about trying Wharton? Gibbs-White? Will Palmer find fitness and form again?
How about managing Kane? I thought that after the high altitude game and then the Miami game in subtropical conditions he might be due a rest. And so it seemed judging by his performance.
Still, I suspect that people are hoping that Tuchel can provide the players with what God left out. But he ain’t the Messiah.