England's mentality minnows strike again! Winners and losers as Thomas Tuchel's tactical cowardice allows Lionel Messi and Argentina to snatch spot in World Cup final

For all his genius, Messi didn't produce much of note for around 75 minutes of this game. The eight-time Ballon d'Or winner existed on the edge of the game. There were a few nice runs and clever touches - and one quite spectacular foul from Elliot Anderson - but Messi was otherwise kept quiet.

Why, then, did England suddenly allow the GOAT all the time and space he needed to turn the game on its head.

When the Three Lions bunkered in, Messi finally had room. He got on the ball more, picking up all sorts of dangerous positions in the vicinity of the penalty area. Messi doesn't falter in these moments; he grows, and that's exactly what happened here.

His first assist was all instinct, a perfectly-weighted little pass to Fernandez at the edge of the box. The second, though, was one that rolled back the years - a drop of the shoulder, a change of pace, and a fine floated ball with his right foot that Martinez headed home.

"He's obviously one of the best players ever for for a reason, and like I said, it was disappointing to kind of give up the the space that we did, and in those final final 20 minutes, it allows not just him but the other players, the other ball players, to you know grow into the game and feel more confident and get balls into dangerous areas. And in the end, it was too much for us to stop," England Harry Kane said post-match.

This will surely be Messi's last major tournament. There isn't much more he can give in an Argentina shirt. Yet here, at 39-years-old, he proved that he could still deliver, and he will get the chance to do so one more time on the biggest stage of all against Spain on Sunday.

Time and time again, when England just need to take the final step - or at least hold steady - they crumble. Tuchel was supposed to be the natural counter to that. He was the ultimate tournament coach, fans were told, who would be the difference-maker in crunch situations.

Yet he too seems to have been engulfed by England's inferiority complex. There is nothing objectively wrong with hunkering down and defending a lead. There is, in fact, something quite admirable in doing things the hard way. But this was the wrong time for a heroic rearguards - or at least, Tuchel went too soon with his backs-to-the-wall approach.

Tuchel made his first defensive substitution after 72 minutes when he replaced Gordon with Ezri Konsa and switched to a back five, although England had already placed themselves firmly on the backfoot by that point. Dan Burn and Nico O'Reilly arrived off the bench 10 minutes later.

Unsurprisingly, Argentina peppered England's goal as they enjoyed 88 percent of possession between Gordon's goal and Lautaro's winning header. England could only hold out for so long.

"I believe that's just the nature of the game," Tuchel said post-match. "As soon as you lose, you get criticised... I take the criticism, that's just the way it is."

The Football Association are said to be backing Tuchel to continue through until Euro 2028, but there is no doubt that the manager needs to shoulder much of the blame for this sickening defeat.

On the other bench, meanwhile, Argentina had a manager who never stopped believing. As Tuchel went more defensive, Scaloni added more attacking players to the mix. Leandro Paredes had been Argentina's best player for an hour, but Scaloni took him off because Nico Gonzalez is a more immediate goal threat. Rodrigo De Paul - usually a certain starter - was thrown on and asked to play on the right of midfield when England's left side looked weak.

"There was blood in the water and we went for it," Scaloni explained post-match.

Argentina's tactics never really change all that much, always some version of 'get Messi the ball', but the structure around him is totally fluid. This is a team that plays for one individual and are willing to do pretty much anything in order to get him a second World Cup. Scaloni knows this.

So, does it matter that he had players not in their natural positions, or a midfield that looked a little imbalanced, or not quite enough height at the back? Not really. This Argentina side does run off belief, Messi and the power of friendship, with Scaloni - now one win away from making it four tournament triumphs out of four since taking charge ahead of the Copa America in 2021 - is the perfect conductor of it all.

"It is a show of the collectiveness of the brotherhood that we are in; we fight to the very end... We're well aware of how special this team is," he said.

This really wasn't a game for Harry Kane, which might sound a bit silly given that he has scored over 70 goals for club and country since the beginning of the season. England needed an advanced forward, an out-ball, but Kane was instead dragged into something of a midfield scrap during the first half.

Then, as England dropped deep, Kane did too. He managed just one shot in the entire game - a speculative effort from well outside of the box that was blocked - and tallied only 26 touches, none of which came inside the Argentina penalty area.

With a home Euros on the horizon that could offer the perfect opportunity to end his international career, there has been plenty of talk that this could be 32-year-old Kane's last World Cup, though he played down such a notion at full-time. It's highly unlikely, though, that he will appear at another tournament in such razor-sharp form, and so this feels like a monumental missed opportunity for the Bayern Munich star.

He still may force himself into the Golden Boot picture should he play in Saturday's bronze-medal match against France, but there is also now a real risk that Kane misses out on what would be a deserved Ballon d'Or, with Messi and perhaps even Lamine Yamal in with a shot of Golden Ball glory if they can win Sunday's final for their respective nations.

Argentina's journey to the final means that, for many, they now feel destined to defend their crown in New Jersey. They cut it close against both Cape Verde and Switzerland, needing extra-time on both occasions, while they came from behind to win against both Egypt and England.

Scaloni spoke of a sense of belief, perhaps even destiny in his post-match press conference, and the story of his Argentina tenure has been built on similar results. In Qatar, they twice let two-goal leads slip but won on penalties, including in the final against France. Lauataro's winning goal in the 2024 Copa America final, meanwhile, came deep into extra-time. This is a team that basically believes its way to wins, and they will feel they can do the same against Spain this weekend.

Tuchel is a football manager who focuses on football matters. The very reason he was hired is that he is a realist. He looks at footballing situations and, in theory, comes up with the right responses. Yet there are some elements that even the best tacticians cannot overcome.

Tuchel claimed that after Argentina conceded, La Albiceleste played with a new verve, a sense of all-or-nothing that had eluded them in the opening hour or so. And yet while he is right that Argentina grew, England shrunk entirely.

"It's a similar story to what's happened in previous tournaments," said Kane. "I feel like we struggled to to keep the momentum of the game. We'd done so well for for that kind of 60 minutes. We scored, we deserved to be ahead. And then, for one reason or another, we struggled to keep the ball."

There is something in the English psyche, it seems, that surrenders to big footballing moments. Whether it was in the Euro 2024 final, or the continental final that preceded it three years earlier, or the 2018 World Cup semi-final, England failed to show their best selves. Including Wednesday's game, they have taken the lead on three of those four occasions, yet tasted defeat each time.

Since 1998, England have played against teams ranked inside the world's top 10 on seven occasions at World Cups. They have lost every time. And so while Tuchel's tactical decisions played a major role in their exit this time, there is no doubt that the Three Lions' inferiority complex remains a problem that is proving impossible to solve, regardless of the man in charge.