After England beat Lionel Messi 3-2 (Kane 2, Bellingham) in normal time tomorrow night and advance to the World Cup final to play Spain, who tonight will beat France 4-2 on penalties, after a 3-3 draw in 120 minutes, we will ruminate on what it is that England head honcho Thomas Tuchel has brought to the team that other managers haven’t. I think it’s quite a few things, including his brilliance as a strategist before and during games, his preparations for the tournament, coaching a squad that does not run out of steam after an hour and tries to hang on to what they have, even if we’re only drawing and his psychology. But there’s something else, something that every manager since Alf Ramsey in 1966 has been unable to remove from the national team: fear. Tuchel’s England does not fear opponents, it does not fear defeat or winning (knowledgeable football people will know exactly what I mean by that) and, above all, he has been able to stop that England shirt weighing so heavy on the players’ backs. So far, it’s been a masterclass.
Even when we were stumbling along against DR Congo in the round of 32, I did not panic. The opposition keeper, painted as somehow a genius by the useless pundits who have tried their best to suck the air out of the room, was not the genius he was painted as being. He got very lucky and sooner or later, I felt, that if England kept plugging away, a flash of brilliance would see us through. And it did. Well, two flashes actually. In years gone by, I’d have feared playing Argentina at any stage of the tournament. Not this time.
Sure Argentina have some great players, Julián Álvarez for sure, and the fading genius of Lionel Messi, but this is not a vintage team. Man for man, we are better than them and, call me controversial here, I would not swap Harry Kane or Jude Bellingham for Messi. The 39 year-old legend can still win a match in a heartbeat, but so can Kane and Bellingham, I reckon even more so. If I was a betting man, I’d bet the house on England.
I’ve been babbling away about the usual “we’ve got a great performance in us” cliché and maybe we have. Maybe we will turn on the afterburners and blow away our South American friends. Argentina, as we say, will come out to play tomorrow night, unlike every other team we have faced so far, with the exception of Croatia.
This is not an England team that will falter or panic if we go a goal down. Tuchel won’t let them. He will have a plan for tomorrow night and it will not be derailed by unforeseen events. And if things do need changing, we finally have a manager who has the nous to make changes that can change the game.
I was against the appointment of a German coach. I love him now and want him to sign up forever. I don’t buy all that tosh about our name being on the trophy because too much can happen to the best laid plans. But even Spain or France can have a bad day, so why not against us?
You may have worked out that I think we will win the World Cup because for the first time since 1970 we have a team capable of winning it. We have flattered to deceive so many times before and I return to my point that fear played a part. Without fear we can beat anyone and this week, I believe we will.
