Thomas Tuchel Reflects on England's World Cup Semi-Final Collapse
Thomas Tuchel leans forward in his chair and doesn’t flinch.
"You can try to kill me here. But it's my scar, it's not your scar."
England’s World Cup semi-final collapse to Argentina is still raw. Five minutes plus stoppage time from a first final since 1966, 1-0 up, seemingly in control – and then it all unravelled. Enzo Fernandez. Lautaro Martinez. A back five. A nation stunned.
Tuchel knows exactly where the finger has been pointing since that night. At his substitutions. At his decision to retreat.
"I have to live with it," the England manager says in the new England documentary, dissecting the defeat. "It's not you having to live with this. I'm in charge here and I take these decisions.
"No-one is more hurt than me, no-one wanted it more. They can endlessly torture you and think: if I had done different substitutions, then we would have won the match. You just don't know it."
The tackle that changed everything
For Tuchel, the turning point wasn’t a goal. It was a tackle.
England had survived the first half against Argentina. Anthony Gordon’s strike had them ahead, and chances for Declan Rice and Harry Kane could have buried the game. They were growing into it. Confident. Composed.
"We did quite well in the first half, it was totally an even match," Tuchel recalls. "We had good ball possession moments. I was actually happy and I saw us growing into this match. I felt we were there."
Then came the chaos. Argentina broke. Giuliano Simeone burst through on goal. Djed Spence flew back and produced a last-ditch tackle that kept England 1-0 up.
"It did something to me, it maybe did something to the players," Tuchel admits. "And we suddenly shift into a mindset of: 'let's just overcome it'. We played like there were four minutes left, rather than 30."
From that moment, England shrank. The details that had defined their tournament – calm in the build-up, clever switches around Lionel Messi, moving the ball to the opposite flank, making the opposition run – vanished.
"From executions, the details of execution, playing around in deep build-up, playing around Messi, playing to one side then switching the side, bringing the game in the opponent's half, making them suffer, having time to recover physically and mentally in ball possession, we were lacking all these things."
‘We will not survive this’
Argentina sensed the fear and went wild.
"Argentina then play very, very quickly. Sorry for the language, [they played] f*** it football. 'We have nothing to lose. Let's f*** it.'
Tuchel watched Lionel Scaloni’s side throw the board in the air. Four strikers. Two wingers. Two centre-forwards. Messi floating. A No 6 sacrificed for a No 10. A centre-back off, a midfielder on. At times, Argentina lined up in what Tuchel describes as a 3-1-6.
"And we struggled."
Jordan Pickford bailed England out with a big save from Nicolas Gonzalez just before the final water break. That moment pushed Tuchel over the edge.
"A key moment if I look back at it and what happened to my decision-making, we conceded a big, big chance right before the water break. And I thought: we will not survive. This is waiting for death. We don't have ball possession, we're not defending good, we're not defending properly in our 4-4-2. We need help."
So he acted. Gordon, the goalscorer, came off. Ezri Konsa came on. England dropped into a back five. The shape shifted to 5-3-2, then 5-4-1.
"I wanted to give the players something: this is what we do. This is what we do now."
Tuchel leaned on what had worked earlier in the tournament.
"Coming with this mindset and this experience, we ended the game against Norway in a back five. We ended the match against Mexico in a back five. And we did it. I thought Argentina relied heavily on crosses, they have four strikers in the last line. I think: let's play in a back five.
"I changed to a 5-3-2, we changed the structure. Because I believe we can handle the width better and we still have three central defenders in the middle if crosses still fly in. We changed then to a 5-4-1. Even my mindset is maybe like: let's just overcome it. And it's too early. Too early for that mindset."
The pressure didn’t ease. Alexis Mac Allister hit the woodwork. The waves kept coming. Then the dam broke. Fernandez. Martinez. England gone.
A team running on fumes
Tuchel doesn’t hide from the idea that he went defensive too early. He accepts it. But he insists there was context – a team that had emptied itself just to reach the semi-final.
"It just piles up through the tournament," he says. "Congo, 70 minutes trailing 1-0, Mexico the altitude, flying to Miami and playing against Norway. We are tired. And still we hang on until the 88th minute."
The late turnaround against DR Congo after trailing for so long. Ten men in the thin air of the Azteca against Mexico. Extra-time in the suffocating Miami heat to edge past Norway. By the time Argentina arrived, England were not fresh. They were clinging on.
Asked if he could have gone the other way – attack for attack, more forwards, more risk – Tuchel doesn’t dodge it.
"Of course you could. No-one knows what would have happened. We could have done it and maybe lost 2-1 and could have gone: 'Is he crazy? He finished the game against Norway with a back five, why didn't finish the game off with five?'
"I think from what I saw and the experience, the information and the level of craziness from Argentina put in – change after change after change, it was just one offensive change after the other. That was my solution to the problem."
That, for Tuchel, is the job.
"That's what the intervention of a coach is. I try to help, you don't implement anything for your ego or whatever. You just try to help."
He circles back to the one thing he cannot escape: the ball. Or rather, England’s failure to keep it.
"If we would have been more stable in the game, with more percentage of ball possession, I would have not changed the structure, why would I? And I would have gone for offensive changes. But that is a very, very difficult road to have gone down. That can torture you."
The torture, clearly, hasn’t stopped. The scar is his. The question, as England move on from that night, is whether he lets it shape them – or define them.
