England’s World Cup Run Wasn’t Good Enough, Again. Who’s Really To Blame?

ATLANTA STADIUM — The body wasn’t even cold when the inquest began. How could England lose after leading Argentina with just minutes to play in Wednesday’s World Cup semifinal? Why did Thomas Tuchel’s team stop attacking the moment Anthony Gordon put the Three Lions ahead with 35 minutes of regular time remaining? What kind of mental block keeps preventing England from winning a major international trophy, a streak that will now extend to at least 62 years? There is a simple answer to all of these questions: England just isn’t good enough. The country that invented soccer is good at it, sure. Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane are legit superstars, guys capable of starting for any team on the planet. But compared to elite national teams like France, Spain and, of course, the Lionel Messi-led Albiceleste — which will face the Spaniards in Sunday’s World Cup final in a battle between FIFA’s two top-ranked men’s squads — England’s team overall is a second-class citizen on a global level and has been for at least half a century. The record of futility isn’t some fluke. Blame Tuchel for this particular failure all you want. The English media have been calling for the German’s head since the final whistle sounded on yet another disappointing World Cup exit for the Three Lions, slamming what they viewed as his overly defensive second half tactics. It’s almost as if they have forgotten that their opponent on the other side of the ball was the reigning world champion, boasting the best player ever, and that Argentina has done more winning in the last four years alone than England has in its entire history. Far better teams than England have been unable to stop Messi from imposing his will on the outcome over the last two decades. It’s not like England didn’t want to score again. “When we went ahead, the messaging was to go again and get another goal,” a devastated Kane said before leaving the field on Wednesday. For the life of them, they just couldn’t do it. Because it’s impossible to score when you can’t keep possession of the ball. And that’s what still separates England from the game’s true elites. For all of England’s fight and physicality and pedigree, the three other semifinalists at this World Cup are all just far superior technically with the ball at their feet. Say what you want about Tuchel’s choice of substitutions, but it’s not like he had someone on his bench with the Velcro touch of someone like La Roja’s Rodri, who is damn near impossible to dispossess without fouling. Tiny margins determine winners and losers at this stage of any major competition. When Spain took the lead over France in Tuesday’s other semifinal, that match was effectively over. Including stoppage time, Les Bleus were behind on the scoreboard for more than 70 minutes of that contest, and yet, Spain still had the ball for the majority of the time. England, in contrast, had just 36 percent of possession against Argentina in a game that was deadlocked for more than an hour. Meantime, La Albiceleste passed the ball around with ease even inside their own box, using keeper Emiliano Martínez as an outlet even when the English were pressing with abandon. “In the culture, basically, of the Argentinian team — of South American teams — ball possession plays a crucial role,” Tuchel said during Wednesday’s post-game press conference. “Ball possession, taught from a young age. It’s in their DNA, and it demands a lot of natural self-confidence to always want the ball, to always be in the gaps, to always define yourself through the ball possession.” “That’s then a crucial thing,” he continued, “to show the courage to take the ball away from these teams in the crucial moments when you’re under pressure. You need to get every little decision right. You need to get the angle, the body positions right. You need to get your decision-making right in little two-against-ones, three-against-twos, to really overcome the first line of pressure, to not be intimidated, to not be physically bullied. Because Argentina has in their culture this mix between being very physical and also strong on the ball.” England only has the first part of that formula. Unless or until its culture catches up, the World Cup or European Championship trophy is never, ever “coming home.” Soccer, at its core, rewards the team that takes better care of the rock. That’s how a tiny country like Croatia, with a population of fewer than four million people — about the size of greater Minneapolis — has reached as many World Cup semifinals since gaining its independence in 1991 as England, with almost 60 million inhabitants, has over the same period. It’s why England was unable to beat Belgium, a nation four times smaller, in the third-place game in 2018. It’s why the Three Lions will be the clear underdog against France on Saturday in Miami in this World Cup’s bronze-medal match. Player for player, man for man, England still lags behind the very best when it comes to the most basic skill there is. And until it admits that, things will never change. In the lead up to the 2022 World Cup, I nearly fell out of my chair when an English journalist I won’t name wrote that “England’s young players are the envy of the world,” as if France and Spain aren’t producing higher-quality talent on an industrial scale every year. Maybe the whole country needs to get out more. Because while the import-dominated Premier League is the best domestic circuit by a landslide, while the place the sport occupies in mainstream culture in Britain is second to none, while the Three Lions are good — maybe even very good — they’ve consistently proven an inability to hold a candle to any of the perennial title contenders. And that’s why England is going home without the trophy once again.