Why creaking Argentina and squeaking England can still scrap out wins
5 min readJul 14, 2026 06:00 PM IST The managers, as managers are, were not happy with their troops in the quarterfinals. “I am not happy with the performance in every sense,” England boss Thomas Tuchel bemoaned. “The commitment is there, but we made life very difficult for us in how we played, in the way we played. Sloppy, not fast enough. Not repetitive enough. We were lucky today,” he added, much to the bemusement of Jude Bellingham, the afternoon’s hero. Hours later, in a milder tone, Argentina’s supremo admitted his team’s struggle to douse Switzerland, even when they were down to 10 men. “It was very difficult for us to win the duels, to put more than five or six passes together,” he confided. He didn’t say his team was lucky, but “ultimately we found the solutions.” The team’s entry to the semifinal, he emphasised, was historic, “but we should have played better.” Unlike France and Spain, smooth-sailing vessels, Argentina and England have creaked and squeaked their way to the last four, weathering literal …
