[From the Coaching Zone // World Cup Perspective #7]
- Dominik Thalhammer
- Jul 18
- 7 min read
Did Thomas Tuchel Really Get It Wrong?
Or Are We Once Again Confusing Cause and Effect?
England lose to Argentina.
Thomas Tuchel makes defensive changes.
The verdict comes quickly.
He got it wrong.
Michael Owen describes Tuchel's decisions as "unbelievable." Gary Lineker and Wayne Rooney criticise both the substitutions and the switch to a back five.
The narrative seems straightforward.
England lead 1–0.
Tuchel changes the system.
Argentina win 2–1.
Case closed.
Or is it?
Perhaps that sequence itself is misleading.
Perhaps the back five wasn't the cause of England's problems.
Perhaps it was a response to them.
Before we judge a coach's decisions, we should first answer a different question:
What problem was the coach actually trying to solve?
Because coaches do not make decisions with the benefit of hindsight.
They make them under intense time pressure, against an opponent constantly creating new tactical problems.
That is why I want to analyse this semi-final from a different perspective.
Not backwards from the final result.
But forwards — from the coach's perspective.
Problem 1: England Had Already Lost Control Before Taking the Lead
Watching the second half again, one thing becomes clear very quickly.
The key turning point did not begin after England scored.
It had already started beforehand.
Even before taking the lead, England spent long periods defending deep.
Argentina increasingly controlled possession, territory and the tempo of the game.
England struggled to gain any meaningful relief.
After regaining possession, they were unable to establish sustained periods of ball retention.
Of course, scoring the opening goal changes every football match.
The team behind takes greater risks.
The team in front often becomes more conservative.
This so-called match-state effect has been well documented in elite football for years.
But that is exactly why the current discussion misses an important point.
England did not become passive because they took the lead.
They were already defending in a deep block before scoring.
The goal merely reinforced a trend that had already been developing.
Problem 2: Argentina Created the Real Tactical Problem
From my perspective, the key issue was not the formation itself.
It was the positioning of Lionel Messi and Julián Álvarez.
Both consistently operated in the spaces between England’s full-backs and centre-backs.
This repeatedly created the same decision-making problem for Djed Spence.
Should he jump aggressively onto the wide player?
Or should he stay narrow to control Messi or Álvarez?
Doing both at the same time was almost impossible.
If Spence stayed narrow, Argentina could deliver crosses from wide areas with little pressure.
If he stepped out, the channel between full-back and centre-back opened up.
Argentina therefore created exactly what elite teams constantly try to generate:
Not simply numerical superiority.
But decision-making problems.
It was therefore less an individual problem for Spence than a structural problem within England’s defensive organisation.
Tuchel's First Solution: Stabilising the Back Five
One aspect has received very little attention in the public debate.
Even before Tuchel officially switched to a back five, England had already defended on several occasions with a situational back line of five.
Anthony Gordon.
Morgan Rogers.
Both were repeatedly forced to recover all the way into the last line.
Not because this had been Tuchel's original plan.
But because Argentina forced England into those defensive positions.
In other words, the back five initially emerged from the game itself.
Later, Tuchel deliberately converted that structure into a 5-3-2.
From my perspective, the decision was fundamentally understandable.
The switch was designed to apply greater pressure in the wide areas and reduce the number of crosses Argentina were able to deliver. By adding an extra defender to the last line, England's wing-backs could step out more aggressively to confront the wide players instead of constantly being pinned inside by the positioning of Messi and Álvarez.
The biggest trade-off, however, was the substitution of Anthony Gordon.
With Gordon leaving the pitch, England lost arguably their most important outlet for depth and attacking relief.
Tuchel strengthened the last line and improved England's ability to defend the flanks earlier.
At the same time, he weakened their best option for escaping Argentina's pressure after regaining possession.
That was the price of his decision.
A New Problem: Messi Immediately Found a New Space
Elite matches never stand still.
As soon as England switched to the 5-3-2, Argentina adapted.
That is one of the defining qualities of world-class players.
They do not accept new problems.
They immediately search for new solutions.
That is exactly what Lionel Messi did.
Instead of operating primarily between the full-back and centre-back, he now positioned himself far more frequently alongside England's three-man midfield, occupying the half-space.
Suddenly, England no longer had to defend only the width.
They also had to control the space in front of the back five.
With only three central midfielders, doing both simultaneously became extremely difficult.
If a midfielder moved wide, spaces opened centrally.
If the midfield remained compact, Messi was given time and space between the lines.
The deliveries were no longer coming only from the byline.
They increasingly originated from the half-spaces.
That illustrates the true nature of elite football.
Every tactical solution often creates a new tactical problem.
Tuchel's Second Solution: The 5-4-1
Tuchel recognised this development as well.
He did not stop with his first adjustment.
England switched to a 5-4-1.
The logic behind it was understandable.
The additional midfielder was intended to protect the half-spaces more effectively, engage Messi earlier and, at the same time, provide better control of the pitch's width.
In doing so, Tuchel showed exactly what elite coaches are required to do throughout a match.
They do not defend a formation.
They respond to new problems.
From my perspective, the main issue therefore lay less in the formation itself than in its execution.
In particular, a more asymmetrical structure on the far side may have offered a possible solution.
The far-side full-back and winger could have remained wider rather than narrowing so aggressively, allowing England to control Messi and Argentina's advancing players earlier and more effectively after switches of play.
Whether this would actually have been the better solution cannot be proven in hindsight.
It is my interpretation of the situations shown in the match footage.
So, Did Thomas Tuchel Make Mistakes?
Perhaps.
Substituting Anthony Gordon deprived England of one of their most important outlets in transition.
The 5-3-2 did not consistently prevent Argentina's crosses.
Messi quickly found new spaces.
And even the later switch to a 5-4-1 did not solve those problems completely.
In my view, that criticism is entirely justified.
But it does not automatically follow that Tuchel's decisions were "inexplicable."
They were understandable attempts to solve very specific tactical problems.
Whether those solutions ultimately proved sufficient is a different question.
Maybe We Are Discussing Coaching Decisions the Wrong Way
Coaches experience a football match differently from most spectators—and often differently from the way it is portrayed in the public debate.
While fans and the media naturally follow the ball, coaches primarily observe the structures around it.
They do not first look for spectacular moments.
They look for the problems the opponent is constantly creating.
Every tactical adjustment.
Every substitution.
Every positional change.
Is an attempt to solve one of those problems.
Public debate, however, often follows a much simpler chain of events:
England take the lead.
The coach makes substitutions.
England lose.
Therefore, the coach got it wrong.
But that narrative merely describes what happened.
It rarely explains why it happened.
That is the difference between analysing the result and analysing the game.
Coaches analyse problems.
Public debate often analyses events.
Perhaps we should therefore stop judging coaching decisions by first asking:
Did the substitution work?
Instead, we should ask:
What problem was the substitution actually trying to solve?
Only once we understand the problem can we properly evaluate the decision.
Conclusion
Perhaps Thomas Tuchel did not coach a perfect semi-final.
Perhaps Anthony Gordon should have stayed on the pitch longer.
Perhaps England could have found better solutions to Messi's movements in the half-spaces.
All of those points are open to debate.
But judging coaching decisions solely by the final result oversimplifies the game.
Elite coaches do not make decisions with the benefit of hindsight.
They make them under intense time pressure, based on the information available at that moment.
Their job is to identify problems and develop solutions.
Sometimes those solutions work.
Sometimes they create new problems.
And sometimes the opponent finds the next answer just a few minutes later.
Take Argentina's winning goal.
Following a short corner routine, the ball reached Lionel Messi. England failed to protect the space in front of the penalty area, allowing Messi to find Enzo Fernández, whose shot was not blocked decisively.
The crucial question is therefore:
Was this the consequence of Tuchel's tactical adjustment? Or was it a collective and individual execution error within England's defensive structure?
This is exactly where it becomes important to distinguish between the coach's responsibility and the players' execution.
A coach can provide the structure.
A coach can develop solutions.
A coach can respond to new problems.
But ultimately, those solutions have to be executed by the players on the pitch.
Perhaps that is the most important lesson from this semi-final.
The ball explains what happened.
The structures explain why it happened.
That is where true game analysis begins.
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