Argentina exposed England's all-too-familiar World Cup faults

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.

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 criticized," 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 at age 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.

Tuchel admitted they were "tired" after the exertions of Mexico and Norway. But it is surely more than that. It seemed 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 7- or 8-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.