‘My scar, not your scar’: Tuchel stands by England semi-final subs but admits wrong timing

Thomas Tuchel stands by his heavily criticised defensive substitutions in the World Cup semi-final defeat against Argentina this summer, but the England head coach accepts he made them too early.

Tuchel said England were “waiting for death”, unable to cope with the attacking tactics adopted by Argentina in Atlanta as they chased the game after Anthony Gordon’s opener on the hour. He said fatigue and the success of defending with a back five in knockout games against Mexico and Norway also influenced his decisions to sit on the lead.

That approach proved catastrophic as goals from Enzo Fernández and Lautaro Martínez in the final stages of the game ended England’s dreams of making a first World Cup final since 1966.

“You can try to kill me here. But it’s my scar, it’s not your scar,” Tuchel said in a documentary on the England app. “No one is more hurt than me, no one wanted it more. They can endlessly torture you and think: ‘If I had done different substitutions, then we would have won the match.’ You just don’t know it.

“Of course you could [have made attacking changes]. No one knows what would have happened. We could have done it and maybe lost 2‑1 and could have gone: ‘Is he crazy? He finished the game against Norway with a back five, why didn’t he finish the game with five?’ I think from what I saw and the experience, the information and the level of craziness Argentina put in – change after change after change, it was just one offensive change after the other. That was my solution to the problem.

“That’s what the intervention of a coach is. I try to help, you don’t implement anything for your ego or whatever. You just try to help.”

England were on the back foot after scoring, with Djed Spence making a last-ditch tackle and Jordan Pickford making a big save immediately before the hydration break. It was then when Tuchel made his ill-fated decision to replace the goalscorer Gordon with the defender Ezri Konsa.

The German, who faced calls to be sacked in the aftermath of the semi-final defeat, insists the opposition’s gung-ho tactics forced his hand. “Argentina then play very, very quickly. Sorry for the language, [they played] fuck-it football: ‘We have nothing to lose. Let’s fuck it.’ A key moment if I look back at it and what happened to my decision-making, we conceded a big, big chance right before the water break. And I thought: ‘We will not survive. This is waiting for death. We don’t have ball possession, we’re not defending good, we’re not defending properly in our 4-4-2. We need help.’

“I changed to a 5-3-2, we changed the structure. Because I believe we can handle the width better and we still have three central defenders in the middle if crosses still fly in. We changed then to a 5-4-1. Even my mindset is maybe like: ‘Let’s just overcome it.’ And it’s too early. Too early for that mindset.”