UK reaction to semi final loss, Thomas Tuchel criticism over tactics, selections

A little under two years ago, Thomas Tuchel arrived as England manager with a mandate.

Predecessor Gareth Southgate’s unprecedented run of success at major tournaments over the previous six years had, for all the strong results, left a bitter taste.

The Three Lions had blown a 1-0 lead to lose 2-1 to Croatia at the 2018 World Cup. At the Euros in 2021 and 2024, they had made and lost consecutive finals, including a galling defeat by penalties to Italy on home soil despite a Luke Shaw goal in just the second minute and a run of five clean sheets in six games going in.

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Southgate’s England were defence-first: fine for staying in tournaments, but without the killer edge needed to actually win them.

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‘NO REGRETS’: Tuchel doubles down amid wave of criticism

In his very first press conference after being appointed, in August 2024, Tuchel acknowledged as much.

“I think it should reflect the values of the country and of the strongest league in the world, which is the Premier League,” the German said of the style his England would cultivate.

“I think we should be brave enough to play like an England squad and should not try to copy other nations’ styles too much.”

At the time, these were the exact words every English fan wanted to hear.

But in the aftermath of a 2-1 semi-final loss to Argentina to crash out of the World Cup that, even by their standards, was brutal, those words rang hollow.

Former player turned popular pundit Micah Richards summed it up best.

“Thomas Tuchel was brought in to be the difference,” he said on the BBC.

“Tactically, we all thought he got it wrong today.”

‘ON A LEASH’: SOUTHGATE’S SAYONARA

Two days after a 2-1 loss to Spain in the 2024 Euro final, Southgate announced his time was up.

It wasn’t a surprise, nor even a sorrowful farewell: despite being far from disgraced on the biggest stage, the former England defender’s resignation was met with relief.

The defeat had followed a familiar pattern: after a cagey start, the Three Lions were spurred into action after Nico Williams gave Spain the lead.

But Cole Palmer’s 73rd-minute equaliser was cancelled out by Mikel Oyarzabal, with Unai Simon’s save of a Declan Rice header at the death consigning England to yet more heartbreak.

The general consensus, among former greats and fans alike, was that a talented team flush with a deep pool of attacking options needed a fresh voice and a new mindset to take them to the promised land.

“It feels like England were on a leash,” Rio Ferdinand said on the BBC after the final.

“I think every England fan that watches or is in this stadium will be sitting there going, ‘why have we waited to go a goal behind until we let the shackles off and start going at them?’”

“Why have we had to wait so long to be on the front foot and be aggressive when we’ve got such quality players all over the park?”

One of Southgate’s more prominent critics, Ferdinand had previously questioned him following a quarter-final loss to France at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, saying on his podcast that his substitution choices had “let us down”.

“Gareth, in the moment, wasn’t proactive with his substitutions - he was reactive,” he said.

“It hit 1-1 and we’re sitting there going ‘take the bull by the horns, make a substitution, get us on the front foot’. You’ve got Rashford, you’ve got Grealish who can go on, get us on the front foot and change this game.

“You’re sitting there going, ‘It’s too late, man’. You’ve got to do this when we’ve got the chance of still winning this game and taking the game from them.”

Speaking after his resignation, Southgate himself admitted it was “time for change”.

‘A LOT OF FUN’: TOURNAMENT THOMAS’ PERFECT START

As just the third non-Brit to take charge of the national team - he even apologised at his unveiling for his “German passport” - Tuchel’s path to the top of English football was far from conventional.

But along with a reputation as a tactical innovator and outside the box thinker (Chelsea fans referred to him as ‘Tommy Tactics’), he fit the bill for a team looking to add a spark of life to rock-solid foundations.

Tuchel himself described his approach in Ben Lyttleton’s book Edge: What Business Can Learn From Football as: “attack in every minute and to try to score as many goals as possible”.

Adding to his appeal was a reputation for performing at major events, earning him the moniker ‘Tournament Thomas’.

He took farmer’s league bullies Paris Saint-German to within a whisker of Champions League glory in 2020; a year on, he went one step further at Chelsea, defeating the Manchester City juggernaut 1-0 in the decider.

Things couldn’t have started better: in his first major assignment, the German turned a potentially treacherous qualification period for the 2026 World Cup into a doddle.

They won 100 per cent of their qualifying games, including a 5-0 away win over Latvia to seal their fate, and became the first European team in history to reach the World Cup finals without conceding a single goal.

“A lot of fun, a lot of fun,” a delighted Tuchel told reporters.

It was enough to earn him a contract extension until the end of Euro 2028 in early 2026 - but the biggest test was still to come.

‘PERFORMANCE FOR THE AGES’ KINDLES HOPE

Tuchel didn’t take long to make waves: Sky Sports described the squad he assembled for the World Cup as “the most shocking since 1998”.

Stars Phil Foden and Cole Palmer paid the price for below-par Premier League seasons, with the German stating publicly his desire to avoid an over-emphasis on attacking players.

“For some it was a positional thing and not bring[ing] five No. 10s and making them play out of position,” he said of the bold calls.

It meant the team would rely heavily on Kane and Bellingham’s star power to be a threat in North America.

But from the moment the first whistle blew on England’s World Cup opener in Arlington, Texas, England felt like a genuine contender for football’s biggest prize.

A 4-2 win over 2018 semi-final conquerors Croatia was both revenge and a sign the new, aggressive England wouldn’t be overawed on the world stage.

A Harry Kane brace and an ability to quickly bounce back from adversity - both Croatian goals were answered within minutes of play - boded particularly well.

Untroubled in topping their group, the knockout stage gave Tuchel and his team a chance to show their mettle as much as their skill.

Kane came to the rescue with another brace to avoid a major scare against DR Congo; then, in front of an 80,000-strong crowd at the Estadio Azteca, came the moment a nation truly began to believe.

Reduced to ten men after a Jarell Quansah red card, a 2-1 lead looked in real danger: but Kane’s nerveless penalty, plus some fiendish defending in the final minutes, preserved victory in arguably the game of the tournament.

“What happened out there was one of the great England performances,” The Telegraph’s Sam Wallace wrote.

“At 7,350 feet with their lungs burning and their muscles aching, the 11 men of England and then the ten men of England beat a fervent football nation on their own patch.”

“England and Tuchel can take so much credit from how they handled it,” Telegraph chief football correspondent Jason Burt added.

“This was a result and a performance for the ages, the kind of transformative performance that can lead to... well, let’s not get too carried away.”

When Bellingham almost single-handedly willed the Three Lions into the last four with a herculean performance to down Erling Haaland’s Norway in the quarter-finals, the stage was set.

British optimism flickered in the aftermath, with some testy words between Tuchel and Bellingham over the former’s criticism of the team’s performance seeing the journalist at the centre of the drama flamed for threatening to cause a rift in the team.

But with old nemesis Argentina waiting in the wings, England were ready to roar.

‘COACHING CATASTROPHE’ LEADS TO ATLANTA ABOMINATION

For 70 minutes, England played one of the great World Cup semi-finals.

On top of the reigning world champions and with the great Lionel Messi kept largely under wraps, a 55th-minute go-ahead goal from Anthony Gordon looked destined to join Sir Geoff Hurst’s hat-trick in the 1966 final in English football folklore.

The discipline instilled under Southgate remained, but having added so much more, all Tuchel needed to do was stick the landing to cement himself as a national hero.

Then, after the hydration break, disaster struck.

Ezri Konsa, Nico O’Reilly and Dan Burn were all brought on within minutes, bolstering England’s defence but making the tactics painfully clear.

Sensing their chance - later, coach Lionel Scaloni would claim his team saw “blood in the water” - a furious Argentinian attack would create chances, press relentlessly, and eventually lead to two Messi-assisted goals to steal the final from the Three Lions’ grasp.

Even after Enzo Fernandez’s equaliser, Tuchel kept his powder dry: it took until the 95th minute, with the game all but gone, for reserve strikers Marcus Rashford and Ivan Toney to be introduced, to try for a Hail Mary that never looked close to likely.

“That was a coaching catastrophe from Thomas Tuchel,” former Chelsea manager Chris Sutton told the BBC.

“The fact that England get themselves in front and then basically handed Argentina the initiative.

“You can’t expect to defend for 30 minutes against the quality Argentina had.

“It’s all on the coach where I’m concerned. He made the changes. He was negative.

“The question which I’m going to ask is how can you trust Thomas Tuchel to take this team forward?”

England great Wayne Rooney was similarly upset by what had unfolded.

“We got ourselves in such a good position, and then we didn’t know what to do,” the champion striker said on BBC One.

“We sat back, we allowed them to come onto us. They were creating a number of chances, then we cracked. Really disappointed.

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“Once we got the first goal, we didn’t look to go for the second goal. For the players, and for me, Thomas Tuchel made the decision, and when you make the decision it is a gamble.

“The gamble he made was to go with five at the back, which allowed them to dictate the game.

“The decisions that Tuchel has made cost us tonight.”

Michael Owen, meanwhile, invoked a comparison with Spain, who stunned France in their own semi-final to book their spot in East Rutherford.

There’s that word again: “bravery”. Exactly what Tuchel had promised would be a hallmark of his side back in 2024.

Former Arsenal great Paul Merson, meanwhile, lamented the team’s meek end to a World Cup that promised plenty.

“Gareth Southgate took a lot of stick for being a very defensive coach, and we’ve seen this here,” he told Sky Sports.

“Sometimes you’ve got to counterattack it – you’re 1-0 up, they’re putting on more and more forwards on, Argentina, they’ve got to have a go. So then put another forward on and try and counteract that, and then it gives them something to think about.

“When we start putting defenders on, they’re putting forwards on, then we’re just going to sit back. Too many quality players in that Argentinian team for them not to make a chance.

“You’ve got to go out in a blaze, really.”

Harshest of all was The Independent football scribe Miguel Delaney, who said Tuchel “lost his bottle”, calling the tactics “pure cowardice”.

“They ceded the initiative, ceded the pitch, ceded the space around their box and – finally – ceded the game,” he wrote.

“The decision to go to five at the back as early as the second-half hydration break – in the 67th minute – was inexplicable at the time and now feels like it will go down as one of the most confounding moments in English football history.”

Some of the criticism may feel harsh to some — a World Cup semi-final is no mean feat, and the Three Lions’ tournament was undoubtedly successful.

Their win over Mexico in the most hostile of territory in the Round of 16 was among the tournament’s gutsiest; as was a come-from-behind win over Norway in the last 8.

Bellingham has arrived as a new England all-time great. Kane’s leadership was again phenomenal.

Their conquerors, Argentina, played out of their skin. Many will feel there is no disgrace in being beaten by Lionel Messi.

But in the end, Tuchel has been swiftly painted as Southgate 2.0: a manager capable of taking England within touching distance of the promised land, but unable to grab it by the scruff of the neck.

‘I DON’T SEE THAT ANYTHING HAS CHANGED’

The most poignant post-mortem from England’s heartbreak came from former goalkeeper Joe Hart.

“Gareth Southgate took a lot of criticism for the big moments with England, when they had the lead in big games and shutting up shop,” he told BBC One.

“I don’t see that anything has changed in that big moment out there.

“For as much praise as we have given Thomas Tuchel, for him to change it as soon as he did, that is him saying he didn’t believe in his team, that he didn’t think they could land any more punches on Argentina.”

For Tuchel, who has openly referred to managing England as his dream job, such an accusation must be particularly biting.

But the bitter reality cannot be ignored; for Tuchel, for his players, for England management, and for the legions of fans who must have thought, after Gordon put them 1-0 up, that things had at last changed.

Tournament Thomas had promised England would be brave. At the defining moment, they, and he, were anything but.

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