England had the lead, and then they gave it away by refusing to keep it.
Anthony Gordon put them ahead in the 55th minute of a World Cup semi-final in Atlanta, and for half an hour it looked like Thomas Tuchel had called it right one more time. Then Enzo Fernández levelled in the 85th, Lautaro Martínez headed in a Lionel Messi cross two minutes into stoppage time, and England were out. Argentina march on to Sunday’s final against Spain. For England there is only a third-place play-off against France that nobody in the squad wanted.
How Gordon put England ahead
Argentina set the tone before England had touched the ball with any purpose. Leandro Paredes left one on Jude Bellingham inside the first minute, Elliot Anderson was fouled three times in the opening ten and somehow became the first man booked, and the reigning champions made it clear this would be a scrap. England rode it, and then they produced the best version of themselves.
The goal came from Harry Kane dropping deep and clipping one of his diagonal passes out to the right. Morgan Rogers took it down and stood up a cross to the back post, and Gordon arrived to finish. Rogers was making his first start of the tournament and he justified it inside an hour. For a spell either side of the goal England looked like the better team, which the paper form said they should be.
Then Tuchel made the call that will define his tournament.
The retreat that let Argentina in
He took Gordon off for Ezri Konsa, then sent Dan Burn on for Declan Rice. The instruction to a side that had just gone in front against the world champions was to sit on a one-goal lead for more than half an hour, and Argentina accepted the invitation. Messi, handed the ball and the room to use it, began to run the game.
The numbers are brutal. Argentina finished with 15 shots to England’s five and an expected goals figure of 1.84 to 0.53, and they had 56% of the ball to England’s 35. Jordan Pickford kept England alive longer than the performance deserved, denying Nico González with one save and Alexis Mac Allister with another, and Mac Allister also headed against the post. No side survives that weight of pressure indefinitely.
Djed Spence was the exception, outstanding at left-back and responsible for a last-man tackle on Simeone that briefly suggested England might hold on. Reece James returned to the side and then limped off, which has been the story of his last two years.
Fernández and Martínez punish England late
Fernández had already been denied once when he got his moment in the 85th, bending a strike in from distance to level it. The winner was pure Messi. He crossed, Lautaro Martínez rose above the England defence, and the header went in during the second minute of added time. Both goals came with Messi as the architect, which pushed him to the top of the tournament assist charts and level with Kylian Mbappé on eight goals. He had never faced England in his career until Wednesday night. By the end of it he had knocked them out.
What it means for Tuchel and England
Every big call Tuchel made at this World Cup had come off. This was the one that did not, and it came in the game that mattered most, with Guy Mowbray and Alan Shearer both flagging it live as the first gamble of his to fail. The defensive discipline that carried England past Norway and into the last four became the thing that knocked them out, because he committed to protecting the lead at the exact point England still had the legs and the quality to go and win the match.
Sixty years on from 1966, England are still waiting for a second World Cup final. France await on Saturday in a third-place play-off that means little to anyone and less to a group that came to Atlanta believing it could win the tournament outright. The talent was real and so was the run to the last four. England are gone but the tournament is not, and our guide to streaming every remaining World Cup game free in the UK has Saturday’s play-off and Sunday’s final, with the wider knockout picture across our World Cup 2026 coverage.
So the question Tuchel has to answer, before England play another game that counts, is a simple one. Why did a side good enough to beat Argentina decide it was only good enough to defend?
