England were five minutes from ending 60 years of hurt when the dream unravelled. Anthony Gordon had prodded the Three Lions ahead 10 minutes into the second half of their World Cup semi-final against Argentina. But instead of pushing for a killer second, Thomas Tuchel ordered his team to retreat — and then called for the defensive cavalry. Dan Burn, Ezri Konsa and Nico O'Reilly were sent on. The result was a script painfully familiar. With five minutes of normal time remaining, Enzo Fernandez capitalised on England's absent midfield to fire in an equaliser. Then, deep into added time, Lautaro Martinez headed home Lionel Messi's cross to send Argentina to another World Cup final.
Chris Sutton, working as a pundit for BBC Radio 5 Live, did not hold back. "That was a coaching catastrophe from Thomas Tuchel," said the former Premier League winner. "The fact that England get themselves in front and then basically hand Argentina the initiative. Defending deep and another defender on, it's quite a simple game football, you have to get up the pitch. You can't expect to defend for 30 minutes against the quality Argentina had."
“Chris Sutton slams Thomas Tuchel's 'coaching disaster' as England throw away lead to lose 2-1 to Argentina.”
Sutton went further: "It's all on the coach where I'm concerned. He made the changes. He was negative, so the question which I'm going to ask is how can you trust Thomas Tuchel to take this team forward? I don't care what anyone says, England have had a generous run in this competition and they have not played well in one 90 minutes." He branded the display "a coaching disaster".
Tuchel, speaking minutes after the defeat, insisted he had no regrets. "In the moment, no regrets. The team gave everything and we were very, very close. We deserved to be up 1-0," he told the BBC. "We played one of our better matches, maybe our best match in the circumstances."
Tuchel was appointed as Gareth Southgate's successor in 2024 on a contract until the end of this tournament. After securing qualification for the World Cup, he was handed a two-year extension. But Sutton's stinging assessment raises the question whether the FA will trust him to take this team forward — a question that, after another agonising chapter in England's World Cup history, now hangs over the German coach.
