The six minutes England will rue forever, and Argentina will savour for years

6 min readAtlantaUpdated: Jul 16, 2026 08:33 AM IST

FIFA World Cup: Scaloni repositioned Messi, from a central, free-roaming role to the right side. England lost the plot there. (AP Photo)

The contemplations would rage on, for days, months and decades. Those six minutes between glory and despair, those six minutes when England lost their courage and clarity, those six minutes the country could regret forever. Whether England turned too defensive after they seized the lead? Whether the historic combustibility of the mind gnawed them again? Whether they have the drive and resolve to end their drought of titles, the festering habit of slipping when the shores are within their sight? Is it an irredeemable tragic flaw passed on by generations and would be passed on to their inheritors?

Thomas Tuchel, the German manager’s defensive substitutions perceived as the game’s deflection point, would be painted as the fall guy. But it was not his tactics that wrecked England, but the team’s incapability to implement those and deal with the in-game tweaks of the Argentine coach Lionel Scaloni.

A team defending a 1-0 lead in a semifinal with abundant baggage is not cynicism, it’s a practical reaction to a situation wherein the opposition rings in attacking changes. England’s backline comprises those with knowhow and nous, some are serial winners in the league, who have lived through such situations.

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Scaloni repositioned Messi, from a central, free-roaming role to the right side, his hunting zone in the past. He functioned like a hybrid winger. The intentions were simple, storm England with crosses, mix the delivery style, the weight, the shape and the bend. Some were long, somewhere short, some floated, some forceful. Some were passes, long, short, mid-range ones. Scaloni deputed Messi because no one else has his range.

Argentina’s Enzo Fernandez (24) scores their opening goal from a Messi assist in the 85th minute. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

England lost the plot there. They made the fatal mistake of giving Messi too much space and time. Messi and space is a combination for calamity. In the build up to both goals, Messi had the time to pick his men. No one suffocated him, no one wore him down.

It was often 11 vs 10 inside the box and thereabouts. England took numerical superiority for granted. Both goal-scorers, Enzo Fernandez and Lautaro Martinez, were left unmarked. Martinez leapt over John Stones, a defender of considerable aerial prowess and taller than the striker; Fernandez was misconstrued as mop-up man when taking corners and no one bothered to check him. England were myopic and unimaginative. They were merely inclined to block and defend their way out of trouble. Their positioning went off-kilter, with too many operating side by side. For instance, John Stones and Dan Burns often found them suffocatingly close to each other, intervening in each other’s path. Tuchel shouted and gesticulated to stay apart, but the forced style of play jarred and juddered. There is only so much a manager could do, to chalk out the blueprint.

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It was not as though England were horribly unused to the formation. Under Tuchel, England have successfully adopted the ploy. Tuchel hinted as much: “I believe that’s just the nature of the game. As soon as you lose you get criticised. It’s what it is. No one knows what would have happened if we made different decisions.”

It’s likely that England would have still shipped in the goals, because when Argentina flicked on the afterburners, hitherto invisible cracks and goals suddenly. In a sense adding fresh legs and defensive reinforcements was a sensible decision. England panicked when they should not have. They made individual lapses. Jude Bellingham, strangely over emotional, was late to distort the vision and path of Fernandez. Djed Spence, hitherto strong and judicious in every endeavour, emerged the second best from a physical contact with Messi, just before he crossed to Martinez for the second goal.

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Just that his players froze. “We suddenly played with a feeling that we had a lot to lose. We dropped into a deep block which isn’t a problem, but we struggled to (win) any duels, (have) any ball possession anymore,” Tuchel explained.

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The bigger strategic letdown was they hooked Anthony Gordon, sucking pace out of them. Argentina could throw the men upfield with the security that England offered little counter attacking threat.

Argentina’s Lautaro Martinez (22) fires in the winner from Messi’s cross. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

It’s not a complete defeat of Tuchel’s tactics, but the broader failure of understanding the nation’s sensibilities, their psyche conditioned by episodic failures, stories of pain and curses. As consistent as England have been in advancing to the deep end of tournaments, they have lost two World Cup semifinals in eight years and as many successive heartbreaks in Euro finals. It takes more than a manager to alter the nation’s responses. England could keep on changing their managers, but unless the inherent impulses to a setback shifts, to a potential calamity, they will keep on losing as they did on Wednesday.

To phrase it differently, England needed a leader, a personality. They have fine, talented and technical players, but not the smouldering presence of a leader who could cop the blows on his chest and revive the team. Contrarily, every Argentinian transformed into a leader when push came to shove.

In the end, Tuchel, his eyes stoic, took the blame on himself. “I made them, I take the criticism. It is what it is,” he said in the press conference. But it was not his tactics that undid England, but the broader failure in not understanding the sensibilities of the team. It was not about the six inglorious minutes of madness, but what went behind those.