England squander lead against Argentina in familiar World Cup semi-final collapse

England’s World Cup campaign ended in a 2026 semi-final defeat to Argentina after Thomas Tuchel’s side led but could not hold on, with Enzo Fernandez’s equaliser and a late Lautaro Martinez header — assisted by Lionel Messi — sending the South Americans through.

For half an hour, Anthony Gordon looked set to write himself into the select company of England players to score a semi-final winner at a World Cup. Djed Spence’s thunderous challenge to deny Giuliano Simeone and Jordan Pickford’s outstanding save from Nico Gonzalez were moments that, in another outcome, would have been celebrated for decades. Instead, they become footnotes in another near-miss.

The tactical decision that will define the post-mortem was Tuchel’s shift to a back five — effectively a back six, with Nico O’Reilly deployed as a defensive midfielder — at a point when England still had 11 men and more than 25 minutes remaining. The move ceded the midfield entirely. Alexis Mac Allister struck the woodwork twice. Fernandez found the space to equalise. Messi, seemingly heading towards the end of his World Cup career, conjured two assists in the closing stages.

Removing Gordon, who had scored the opener, carried a certain logic given his tendency to exhaust himself, but replacing him with Ezri Konsa stripped England of their only genuine attacking threat. The introduction of Dan Burn, a towering centre-back, underlined how completely the game plan had shifted from winning to surviving — and it did not survive.

The comparison Tuchel must now live with is not Alf Ramsey, England’s only World Cup-winning manager, but Gareth Southgate. This defeat completed a painful hat-trick: England led Croatia in the 2018 semi-final and Italy in the Euro 2020 final, and could not hold on in either. Southgate’s teams struggled to keep possession at the critical moment; Tuchel’s team, by contrast, chose not to try.

Southgate left England as arguably the country’s second-greatest manager, having delivered their best decade since the 1960s. Tuchel now inherits that complicated legacy — close enough to make it hurt, not close enough to matter.