England were 20 minutes from a World Cup final. Anthony Gordon had given them the lead against Argentina, and a nation dared to dream. Then Thomas Tuchel changed shape, introduced defensive players, and switched to a back five. Within half an hour, Enzo Fernandez and Lautaro Martinez had turned the game on its head. The Three Lions were out, and the inquest had begun.
Former England coach Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, who served under Gareth Southgate from March 2023 until his exit after Euro 2024, did not hold back. “We’re talking after the game, and it’s easy, you know, but I don’t think that Gareth would have gone to a back five,” Hasselbaink said on The Good, The Bad & The Football YouTube show. “I don’t think that he would have gone to it with 20, 25 minutes before the game finishes.” The Dutchman recalled Southgate’s own mistakes in the Euro 2020 final against Italy, when a switch to a back five left England struggling. “I think that he would have kept it at a four,” Hasselbaink added. “I think he would have changed the wide players and still had energy up front so that he could still press.”
“Tuchel criticised for defensive switch as England lose World Cup semi-final 2-1 to Argentina; Shearer says his time is not up.”
Yet Hasselbaink also pointed the finger at the players. “After the 1-0, when they’re going backwards, that is not Tuchel,” he said. “That has nothing to do with Tuchel. That is just a mentality of the players thinking, ‘Oh, we need to defend now that 1-0’, instead of having the same kind of tactics and having the game in their half.”
Tuchel, who signed a two-year extension in February to lead England into the 2028 European Championship, which England will co-host, insisted the blame lay elsewhere. Speaking after the defeat, he questioned the team’s DNA, according to reports. The German had been hired to win this tournament, as he himself said when he took charge in January 2025. Former England captain Alan Shearer, writing for BBC Sport, acknowledged the failure but urged patience. “Tuchel was hired to win this tournament for England – he said so himself,” Shearer wrote. “That did not happen. He got things wrong with the way we retreated after scoring and his substitutions did not help. But just because Tuchel did not deliver does not mean his time should be up.” Shearer believes the criticism will not faze Tuchel: “He is experienced enough and has been successful enough to know how the game works.”
Shearer pointed to the fact that England never produced the performance Tuchel promised. Against Argentina, he went early with the defensive approach that had worked against Mexico and Norway, but against a side of Lionel Messi’s quality, it proved costly. “When you give that much possession away to a very good team for so long, and give that much freedom to the little genius Lionel Messi, then he is going to cause damage – and he did,” Shearer said.
England now face France in the bronze final, a consolation prize that feels hollow. Tuchel’s methods will be questioned more than ever, but with a contract running until the end of the 2028 Euros, he will have the chance to redeem himself. Whether the players still believe in his system remains the unresolved question.
