To ask why the England team (the men) keep falling at the final hurdle, (well virtually at the final hurdle,) at the football World Cup ... and The Euros too?

When Argentina were belting out their national anthem with such conviction I felt it was going to be pretty much impossible to win.

The other team were better cheaters you mean.

This.

He will have known.

It was very clear last night winding up Bellingham was part of the Argentinian tactics.

One of the problems England face when they come up against teams like Argentina is that England have a way of playing, and they tend to stick to it. The defensive subs show that - that’s what’s worked through the tournament, going ahead and then going defensive, but it was never going to work against a team with the attacking flair of Argentina.

Both Gareth Southgate and Thomas Tuchel lost their nerve at the final hurdle and tried to keep onto the lead by being defensive rather than continue attacking when we were in the ascendancy. It was ludicrous given that our attack is better than our defence.

We changed the way we were playing completely once we had the first goal against Argentina and that is pure tactics. If we'd carried on actually playing football we would have had a chance of winning. Not guaranteed, Argentina may well still have won, but we would have had a much better chance.

One goal against a team like Argentina with 40 minutes on the clock isn't good enough to play so defensively and not even try to get possession and score again. It was unbelievable, most of the second half of the game happened inside England's box. Argentina are good but we let them do that, it was a complete choice. Pickford was hopping around like the energiser bunny doing saves the whole time.

It was an awful watch, you could see what was going to happen before it actually did. It was a bit like a horror movie where you know the axe murderer is lurking outside the cabin and it's only a matter of time before he kills someone. Awful.

No - according to some of the European press that may have been a reaction to the existing defenders falling apart either from the freeze reaction other posters have mentioned or from sheer physical exhaustion.

This makes no sense though because by that measure Argentina’s players mostly play abroad? You’ve just named 5 players playing abroad.

No idea but as a Scot long may it continue! 🙌

Where did you get it from that Enzo Fernandez is Arsenal? He's a Chelsea player. They literally celebrated his goal on social media (and then deleted it).

💯

Given the collective salaries of those men playing for England last night is estimated to be over £192 million a year, one might think that they could/should have played better....

However, it's a game. It was played in serious heat/humidity, the other team played dirty and the Ref wasn't completely fair on occasion. And one team had to lose.

Also heard Barco was slagging Bellingham off in Spanish, maybe not knowing Bellingham speaks the language fluently hence him whacking him on the back of the head after the match.

This. Last night it was bad management / strategy. They went into defensive mode, took off rice and brought on defenders instead of bringing on more attaching players like Saka or madueke.

Well, why do you think? They were beaten by a better team, a very aggressive team who weren't going to back down. They still got incredibly far so not sure why you're denigrating that.

They weren’t berated if you go back and listen to it - it was the ridiculous interviewer trying to stir things up.

Could it just be that that is their standard. The other teams are better. They’re not at a top place standard, instead they are consistently sitting around 5th/6th etc. It baffles me that every time it’s made out that the team are better than they actually are, with a big part of it just being supporters, press etc getting their hopes up. But they’ve been out performed by a team that was expected to out perform them so it really shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.

it would be different if they kept getting to the actual final and never won against different teams, I would understand the confusion a bit more then. But they don’t, because they’re not one of the best teams.

Touchel lost the game for them. He took a massive gamble and it didn’t pay off. Well done though lads xx

You can't "work out" something like that, it's not like mathematics. He's not good looking, but he doesn't make my skin crawl.

Most of their team made me feel this way to be frank. They played like utter hooligans.

Last night it was purely tactical. We outplayed them for 72 minutes until the subs were made. Tuchel panicked and should rightly be sacked.

I don’t get this attitude. It’s not a failing to lose at the World Cup semi finals. Ask any Irish person about the World Cup 1990 - we got to the quarter finals and the whole country rejoiced, it was the absolute best time ti be alive. There were 50k people at the airport when the team returned.

All of this. Bad tactics along with a ref who wasn’t on our side (literally!)

I didn’t watch the game. Not because I am unpatriotic. I would love England to win the World Cup again.
I haven’t watched any of it because it is not a normal tournament.
It is organised by FIFA and Trump.
Argentina. The president is best buddies with Trump.

Argentina are a very good team. Who have one of the most able at scoring footballers in the world. Old these days but can still score. Although he did miss a penalty in one of the previous matches.

England by all accounts dropped their aggressive play from previous matches. And went defensive. Which wasn’t how they had so far played.
The players will now have lost faith in the manager.

Yeah. It says something when your most dynamic players are Djed Spence (nearly got relegated with Spurs) and Anthony Gordon who finished 12th with Newcastle.