Argentina expose England's all-too-familiar World ...

ATLANTA -- The problem with long-term pain is it usually comes with a scar. England will wake up Thursday to the knowledge it will be 62 years of hurt -- at least -- before their wait for a piece of major men's silverware is finally over. The agony is perpetual, the torment terminal. And the increasingly cyclical components of these tournament exits have come to resemble a glass ceiling they just cannot break. Thomas Tuchel looked like an elite coach at this World Cup precisely up until the moment he didn't. Until he joined the long list of England managers who fell into the same trap. He changed the opening Group L game against Croatia to positive effect. He did so again as Congo DR were 15 minutes away from causing a huge upset in the round of 32 before England recovered, while the manager's switch to a back five with 10 men helped repel Mexico in the bearpit that was the Azteca, and then Norway in the sweatbox that was Miami. - Argentina show why they're reigning World Cup champs with epic comeback - Player ratings: Messi gets 9/10 as Argentina beat England to reach WC final - Messi held Yamal as a baby. The World Cup final will be their next meeting Adopting this approach is designed for one outcome alone: achieving the right result. And so, Tuchel had a vaguely philosophical air when it was put to him that praise of his in-game management had turned -- quite savagely in some quarters -- to criticism after he seemed to accelerate surrendering the initiative against Argentina through a series of overtly cautious substitutions. "As soon as you lose, you get criticised," he said after Wednesday's 2-1 semifinal loss. "That's just what it is. No one knows what would have happened if we made different decisions." True, but Tuchel was brought in to be the big differential this summer and yet it was difficult to see much of a change between Tuchel and Gareth Southgate in Atlanta. The final step Southgate was unable to take was the same: closing out the biggest matches. In 2018, England led Croatia in the World Cup semifinals and lost in extra-time. In the final of the 2020 European Championship, they led Italy and lost in a penalty shootout. England held on to leads at this World Cup against Mexico and Norway with admirable spirit, but why try to do it for so long against the best attacking team they have faced by some distance? Argentina didn't want the game England served up for 55 minutes. The Three Lions held their nerve against extreme provocation, and ran at the South Americans' backline with the pace and power of Jude Bellingham, Anthony Gordon and the excellent Djed Spence. But after Gordon's goal, sitting back just played into Argentina's hands and allowed Lionel Messi the chance to do what he continues to do better than almost anyone else, even aged 39. Southgate's inherent conservatism was founded on two immutable truths: despite a proud history and the Premier League standing as the behemoth of club football, England do not have a track record of beating top sides at major tournaments. At the last eight World Cups dating back to 1998, England have been knocked out by the highest-ranked team they faced every time bar one. And that one anomaly was Croatia, when Luka Modric took the game away from them with the sort of midfield control that England have lacked, in truth, for decades. Andrea Pirlo did it to them in 2014. Jorginho and Marco Verratti did it in 2021. In 2024, Spain won the Euros final in no small part to an excellent performance from Martín Zubimendi, marshalling the ball with a maturity England could not match. England tried to evolve into becoming a more technical side under Southgate, but never achieved anything like the fluidity of the teams that actually win these competitions. Part of this has to come down to another old English problem: fatigue. These are players who are tested with greater intensity than anywhere else at club level. Harry Kane and Bellingham are among those to play their football abroad, but many of this squad based in the Premier League reached Champions League or Europa League finals on top of regularly playing in the most competitive league in the world. It is also a fact that England had the most condensed schedule of any team to reach the last four and something they chose to compound by basing themselves in Kansas City rather than in one of the cities where they would play during the group stage. Tuchel admitted they were "tired" after the exertions of Mexico and Norway. But it is surely more than that. It felt like more of a conscious decision this time with Tuchel switching to a back five and essentially taking all counter-attacking pace out of the team to leave Kane isolated. This is also about a longstanding mentality problem. It is worth a moment to take in the view of Lionel Scaloni, England's vanquisher-in-chief alongside Messi, and now one game away from becoming only the second coach in history to win a men's World Cup twice. "There was blood in the water and we went for it," he said after the match. And how did Argentina do that? "The players were playing like seven- or eight-year-olds," Scaloni explained. "They were not thinking about 'what happens if we miss.' "If you win, tie, lose, there's time for nothing else: if things don't go your way, you still feel you did things you knew how to do." Could England honestly say the same? In the 21st century, only twice has the team who scored the opener in a World Cup semifinal gone on to lose the match. Both were England. Tuchel admitted England could not keep possession or compete for duels any longer as the match wore on. They averaged 12% of the ball in the 37 minutes between Gordon's opener and Lautaro Martínez's 92nd-minute winner. "I don't believe so much in an English thing and in a curse or whatever, or in like history repeating itself in these moments," insisted Tuchel. "It's different coaches, different players, different situations, different opponents, so I think basically I believe in the football thing, which for me still as a football coach cost us today because I think we were just not active enough in any structure. "Active, meaning we didn't find any duels anymore, we didn't find any activity anymore. We couldn't get close anymore to the to play on the ball." This goes back years. Sven Goran-Eriksson, England manager between 2001 and 2006, famously used a stock phrase to describe tournament performances: "First half good, second half not so good." Fabio Capello struggled with this. Every manager has since. Tuchel summed it all up when giving a quietly damning assessment of England's uneven performances under Southgate in reaching the Euro 2024 final. Asked what was missing, he said: "The identity, the clarity, the rhythm, the repetition of patterns, the freedom of players, the expression of players, the hunger. They were more afraid to drop out of the tournament in my observation, than having the excitement and hunger to win it." He was right. And it is still the case now. These scars define England. Getting past them is Tuchel's biggest challenge in 2028.