New characters, same story: How England's World Cup heartache resurfaced - and what comes next

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Evening Standard

16 July 2026

A bitter sense of deja vu remained as

Three Lions

fell victim to Argentina’s late show

You can change the setting, change a few characters, but if the plot never changes, are you actually telling a different story?

It is a question

England

could do with asking themselves as they come to terms with

the manner in which Lionel Messi and defending champions Argentina cruelly ended their bid for World Cup glory

here in Atlanta.

Consider the following. Euro ‘96: semi-final defeat to Germany. France ‘98:

Argentina

in the last-16.

World Cup

2002: Brazil quarter-final. Euro 2004: Portugal quarter-final. Euro 2016: Iceland last 16. Russia 2018: Croatia semi-final. Euro 2020: Italy final. Yesterday. On each occasion,

led a crucial knockout game and still lost.

The lesson surely cannot be to not score first. It has to be how to react to going ahead.

sat on a 55th-minute lead and it blew up in their face.

Anthony Gordon’s sensational opener was the only goal until the 85th minute, but then

Argentina’s otherworldly powers of recovery kicked in and they prevailed 2-1

Chelsea’s Enzo Fernandez scored with five minutes to go, then Lautaro Martínez two minutes into stoppage time, both assisted by Messi, the greatest player of all time, whose genius at 39 is proving timeless.

Heartbreak: Lautaro Martinez buries the goal which knocked

out of the World Cup

Onto

Sunday’s final against Spain

head an extraordinary group hellbent on crowning Messi a double world champion, something they appear to view as a moral obligation.

: a team littered with Premier League pantomime villains, who just seem to find a way.

It was drilled into the players’ psyche by Tuchel’s staff that they were underdogs

when they headed to Estadio Azteca to face Mexico in the last-16

. Tuchel’s preparation had been much the same here, an easing of pressure, of the weight of the shirt, just with a little reframing.

“The pressure is all on them, they’re the world champions,” Marc Guéhi said, a cheeky half-smile meeting his furrowed brows as if to betray the fact this was a conscious plan, a tactic. It undoubtedly has been all the way through. Even in qualifying, Tuchel would reject suggestions

were among the top contenders at this

Life as the plucky underdogs backfired in Atlanta. They started to believe their own unhype. Between Gordon’s goal and the one that knocked them out,

had 12 per cent of possession, cataclysmically low.

It was the mismanagement of those delicate minutes that lost

this semi-final.

“When we went 1-0 up, we seemed to try and hold on, which at this level is not enough,” said Harry Kane, whose assessment was spot on, to no one’s real surprise. He has featured in this story five times over but can’t craft a happy ending.

World Cups are too precious, too rare, not to learn from past mistakes. Tuchel’s

was always just a rebrand, a software update on Gareth Southgate’s

. They were more inexperienced and naïve at his first tournament at Russia 2018, yet eight years on, as though no progress had been made, here was a rerun of that semi-final defeat to Croatia: a collective panic, a fear of the ball, a fear of leading because eyes were now clockwatching and minds on the final. Play the game in front of you —

did.

Thomas Tuchel’s in-game management against

has come in for heavy criticism

Getty

“We smelt blood and we went for it,” said their manager, Lionel Scaloni.

as prey,

as the chasers. That suited the comeback kings. As the story of Argentina’s 2026

journey repeated itself, so did England’s modern tournament history.

The FA hired Tuchel, this knockout specialist, to get them over the line. Instead, another nearly moment, another ‘what if…’ at the business end of a tournament. The wheat and the chaff duly separated,

are once again on the wrong side of it all, their destiny now Saturday’s third-place play-off against France — the game no one wants to play — and then plenty of soul-searching. Then go again.

Tuchel will guide England into a home European Championships in 2028 where as co-hosts they will unavoidably be favourites

. The underdog tag won’t wash then.

“If it doesn’t end up well, it’s easy to say that my decisions were wrong,” Tuchel barked afterwards. But there is no hindsight bias in any of the criticism he has fielded since. It was he who wrote for

the very ending they are used to — self-destruct in real-time.

Here was a rerun of the 2018 semi-final defeat to Croatia: a collective panic, a fear of the ball, a fear of leading because eyes were now clockwatching and minds on the final

Before his first match in charge, he’d reflected on their run to the Euro 2024 final under Southgate and declared: “They were more afraid to drop out of the tournament than having the excitement and hunger to win it.” 16 months later, his substitutions and instructions produced a carbon copy of Southgate’s greatest failing. Cue another slow and painful

death. A death by four-dozen yards voluntarily surrendered.

England have enjoyed some stellar moments at this

. Gordon’s semi-final strike was their best team goal of the lot. Kane and Jude Bellingham forged a newfound partnership, which kept them alive until the final week. Their honest supporting act elevated them. There was to be no ending those 60 years of hurt in the end, though.

Tuchel called it one of England’s best performances at this

. Until his changes, that may have rung true.

Those years of hurt will tick on up to 62, but there were sources of encouragement in America, where

went further at a

under a foreign coach than ever before.

His controversial selection of Djed Spence vindicated itself

as the tournament wore on. Gordon and Anderson excelled.

Djed Spence managed to keep

Lionel Messi

quiet for long stretches of the semi-final

AFP/Getty

Bellingham hit a level no

player had at a tournament since Bobby Charlton in 1966, matching Pelé on seven

goals aged 23 or younger, a record only bettered by Mbappé. See you Saturday, Kylian.

But while Bellingham is young, Kane, who will be 36 at the next

, is not. This defeat has huge ramifications for the

captain. What massive pressure it places on Euro 2028 being the coming together of all things, the summer it finally happens for

“That,” Tuchel said earlier this week, “is essentially what a

is for: to excite a country, to make people forget their worries. There is so much to love about this team, and I’m very glad that people feel it.”

They felt so strongly because they believed so fervently that things were just starting to look different. Nope. A few new characters, the same old story.

Messi proud to give Argentina ‘special joy’ after victory against England

Hayters TV

England v Argentina, a semi-final steeped in history for Buenos Aires

OffsAIde

Jude Bellingham clarifies Lionel Messi confrontation in England’s World Cup semi-final loss to Argentina

The Independent

Lionel Messi Gets 8.5/10 | Argentine Players Rated After They Beat England To Qualify For The FIFA World Cup 2026 Final

The 4th Official

The Lionel Messi superpower that sunk England and sent Argentina to another World Cup final

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