So there goes another major international football tournament.
Another month of hope and crushing disappointment after England were banished from an opportunity to bring it home following their 2-1 defeat against Argentina.
It’s wonderful that the country retains such optimism but a shame that the England men’s team have not yet lived up to the achievements of the women but that does not mean that they are failures.
2026: England’s Best World Cup in Years
Let’s reflect on some achievements that we should be proud of. Thursday was only the 4th time that England’s men’s team have reached a World Cup semi-final. Compared to the last tournament in Qatar, this year England reached further, had two more wins, three knockout victories compared to one and scored more goals. England became the first nation in World Cup history to have two players score six or more goals in the same tournament with Harry Kane becoming England’s highest World Cup goal scorer. Moreover, England scored more goals overall when relying less on a single player, which shows that even if the results didn’t go our way the depth and quality of our squad was more than up there with the very best.
Why Argentina Played Like a Machine
It was clear watching the semi-final that England were a match for Argentina. Whilst the South American team were the most intense and talented we had faced, it was not until deep into the second half that they prevailed. And that’s not surprising. We know from domestic football that the best teams play together week in, week out backed by the most comprehensive and talented infrastructure. Eight of Argentina’s starting eleven also started their victorious 2022 World Cup final. Two of the remaining three came on as substitutes against us. England’s starting eleven featured just five of those who started our 2022 quarter-final defeat in Qatar. Many of the other starters were barely on the international stage four years ago. Not only are Argentina an incredibly talented team but they’re a team that have been together for over four years so no wonder they played like a machine.
The Experts Turned on Tuchel
You would have thought therefore that the so-called experts who major broadcasters must pay a huge amount of money to would have more perspective over England’s performance rather than sniping as they have been. The England manager, Thomas Tuchel, prior to the World Cup achieved nine wins from his first ten matches with his teams scoring twenty-six goals and conceding only three achieving the best defensive record in Europe.
Midway through the second half on Wednesday, he took a daring decision to move to a defensive system. Unlike in previous games, this didn’t pay off and you would have thought listening to those who should know better that he’d committed high treason or heresy.
Judge the Decision, Not the Result
Martin Lewis, the Money Saving Expert, has a philosophy which encourages people to separate the quality of a decision from its outcome. So long as you make the best choice with the information, numbers and circumstances available at the time it was a good decision even if unpredictable outside factors result in a bad outcome. Everything about football is unpredictable and England knew that they would suffer an onslaught with their slender 1-0 lead. Given Tuchel’s defensive tactic had worked previously, if it had held off Argentina he would have been lauded as a genius. Same decision, different outcome. Only hindsight tells us he might have got the timing wrong but how many more goals would we have conceded if he hadn’t shown such courage?
The Critics Were Never in the Arena
Theodore Roosevelt’s 1910 Sorbonne speech asserts, “It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming…”
Many of these smart-alecks have been in the arena, stumbled and got nowhere near the level of the 2026 national team. So my advice to them is, remember why you have no World Cup winner’s medal, don’t manage a top flight or international team so have to satisfy yourself throwing cheap brickbats of those who know, and are, better.
I originally wrote this for my weekly column in The Argus, published on Monday, 20 July 2026.
