- 10 hours ago
England are through to the quarter-finals of the World Cup, but that isn’t the story. After losing Jarrel Quansah to a red card in the second half, Thomas Tuchel completely changed their set up to defend, and Mexico could do nothing to avoid their historic 3-2 defeat. Adam Clery shows how England got everything right with 11 men, and stayed in control with 10.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Right, hello everybody, welcome to ACFC, and obviously, yes, football is not the only thing that's come home.
00:06Ha ha, and no, I do not know where you begin with that.
00:10England are through to the World Cup quarterfinals, but that is honestly the least interesting thing
00:15about what was maybe one of the greatest tournament performances in England's entire history.
00:23They were absolutely perfect when they had 11 men on the field, and when they went down to 10,
00:27then Thomas Tuchel made a series of very brave and very clever changes that got them over the finish line.
00:34So let us look at how, somehow, this England team survived Mexico.
00:44All right, so first off, thanks to my flight back from New York and how late the game was,
00:49about nine hours sleep in the last three days, in case you're wondering what's going on here.
00:54But more importantly, how England adapted in the second half is probably the most interesting thing we can talk about.
01:01But before we get there, it is worth looking at the first half to show you why that performance was
01:06initially so good.
01:08And basically, if you've watched Mexico at this tournament, you'll know how important those opening 20, 25 minutes are for
01:15them.
01:15They come out so intense. They try to get an early goal. They really try to rattle their opponents.
01:20England knew that the most important thing they could do is just see out that initial period.
01:26And Opta went and posted this at the first hydration break, and this is basically everything England did in that
01:32first period of the game.
01:33And you'll see it's not very exciting at all. It's largely just retaining possession.
01:38They're probing down the sides every now and then to see if they can get Gordon or Saka a cheap
01:431v1.
01:43But by and large, it's no unnecessary risks. It's not giving the ball away easily.
01:48It's not inviting too much pressure on if they don't need to.
01:51It's pretty smart in terms of how you control a game and how you bring the energy in it down
01:57to a better level for you.
01:59But it wasn't perfect, though, and England did still have issues off the ball.
02:02Like, this one moment in particular really stands out.
02:05Because Kane and Bellingham press, Rice jumps up to join them, but they're still, you can see, a man light
02:11here.
02:12So they get played through and just look at Jude Bellingham.
02:15He quite understandably, I think, cannot believe that neither Gordon coming over from the left or Anderson jumping up from
02:21midfield
02:22have backed up this press and they've been stranded at the top end of the pitch.
02:26So all in all, after that first period of the game, I thought England were actually playing very well.
02:31They just didn't have the sort of courage you need to go and win this game.
02:35So in that hydration break, Tuchel made a number of changes that fixed that.
02:41And you can see it in the first goal, like, Mexico have rotated around in the attack.
02:44And before they can reset, they've left this big gap here.
02:48Now, I think at the start of the game, England would have just tried to calm it down.
02:51They would have tried to slow the game down, get the composure.
02:53But instead, Pickford plays very early into that space.
02:56And Rice, instead of waiting for support or seeing what options were sideways, just drives into it because the opportunity
03:03is there.
03:04And that is, from them both, much braver.
03:07And they get the reward for that because it gives Saka the 1v1 he needs to make something happen.
03:12He goes on the outside, he gets the crossing, but just watch the movement from Harry Kane here.
03:17At the very start, he's going near post, but then he changes direction to go to the back post to
03:23get the attention of this specific defender.
03:25And as soon as he's got it, he then changes back and takes him out of this space here, leaving
03:31that gap for Bellingham.
03:32And that's 1-0.
03:33Then, and yes, I know we're just skimming over this first half, but trust me, the second is where the
03:38really juicy stuff is.
03:39Anderson finally has the courage himself to leave that space in front of the back line.
03:44And that means he actually joins in the press for the very first time in the game.
03:47And England steal the ball when he does.
03:50They get it up the other end, and that's 2-0.
03:52And I know, I know exactly what you were thinking, like, oh, maybe this is job done.
03:56Maybe they've perfectly executed this game plan.
03:59Maybe I can just go to bed.
04:00But the thing is, you could live to be a million years old, and you will never again see the
04:07levels of drama that unfold from that moment on.
04:11So just as a quick primer, right, even in the first half, England were happy to sit in this 5
04:16-4-1 shape and stop Mexico playing through or getting in behind.
04:21And that is a little bit defensive, yes, but it's actually quite sensible because it takes away Mexico's best way
04:27of hurting you.
04:28They want to play balls in behind or over the top or get behind a high line.
04:33So you deny them the ability to do that, you force them to find some other solutions.
04:37And it was very obvious very early on, their only other solution was going to be crosses.
04:43Like, yes, their goal comes from a set piece, but even before that, their best chances are crosses stuck in
04:48for Raul Jimenez.
04:49Like, if we look here, these are all the crosses Mexico had in the game prior to the 54th minute.
04:56There's not loads, but there is quite a high number.
04:58They're primarily down this left-hand side, and they contribute to all but one of the chances Mexico had up
05:06until this point.
05:07And, of course, the reason I'm using the 54th minute as some kind of line in the sand here is
05:12because after that, absolutely everything about this game completely changes.
05:17Coming out for the second half, you can see the third phase of England's plan was actually to really throttle
05:22Mexico.
05:22They press as a full and proper unit.
05:25They're trying to take the game to them.
05:26That is what we were going to see England do in this half until Jaryl Kwanza gets sent off.
05:34And I don't know if anyone's actually debating this today or anything, but that is...
05:38There is a slight element of misfortune about it.
05:40It sure is leg like bounces off the ball, but that is a red card.
05:44Does not matter how many presidents you want to phone, that is a red card.
05:49But I think the most important thing to say, right, is that from this moment in the game, you can
05:54see exactly why Thomas Tuchel got this job.
05:59The ability from the bench to make changes that directly influence the outcome of a game.
06:06And we're going to show you them here, right?
06:07The first decision after the red card was to bring John Stones on and then go to quite a deep
06:134-4-1.
06:15And initially, what England looked to do was to attract pressure nice and high up the field near their own
06:21defensive third.
06:22And then hit long up either to Kane to hold the ball up or to someone like Gordon to run
06:27in behind.
06:28It's a pretty common strategy to use when you've just gone down to 10 men.
06:32Basically lure the opposition on, get them thinking only about attacking, less about defending, and then try and hit them
06:38going the other way.
06:39It's not exactly where the penalty comes from.
06:41That's actually a goal kick.
06:43But that idea of finding a runner off a long ball, you can see it.
06:47Gordon reacts first.
06:48Mexico are only thinking about going forward.
06:51You get the penalty and that is 3-1.
06:53And then you're thinking, hooray, wonderful, that's really nice.
06:56Maybe everything's just going to be okay.
06:58It's all sunshine and rainbows until, of course, then it immediately is no longer sunshine and rainbows.
07:05So then, you've got a one goal lead, but you are down to 10 men.
07:10You are in the Azteca and you limp through to that next hydration break.
07:17What do you do?
07:18Well, and I don't mind telling you this, when England came back out of that break with Byrne and Spence
07:24replacing O'Reilly and Anderson, I thought Thomas Tuchel had made a pretty big mistake.
07:31Because England, and this is literally minutes after that change, just completely ceded possession by going to this 5-3
07:39-1 shape.
07:40And they couldn't find Harry Kane with any of the outballs, so he pretty much became a passenger.
07:44They could not get any of their runners up the pitch.
07:47So they were just constantly trying to defend balls into the box and then just clearing it straight back to
07:54Mexico.
07:54With at least 15 minutes left, plus God knows how long in stoppages, I just felt that was way, way,
08:02way too long to try and be that defensive.
08:05But just to go back to this, which is all of Mexico's crosses prior to the red card, Tuchel had
08:12already seen that unable to play through the centre, this was all the invention they really had.
08:19So by sitting even deeper, being even more compact, they've suddenly either got to find massive new levels of variety
08:27to their attack out of nowhere, or they're just going to double down on doing this.
08:32But the thing is, the first substitution Mexico make after the red card is Santiago Jimenez, who is good, sure,
08:40but he's a deeply untechnical 6'2 centre forward.
08:45So if they had been sitting on some kind of maverick plan B, that's probably not the change they would
08:51have made.
08:52So what Thomas Tuchel gambles on, and it is a gamble by the way, this could easily have not worked,
08:57what he gambles on is that all they're going to have to do to see out the game is repel
09:02balls into the box.
09:03And you know what? I am a big enough man to say this, maybe, maybe Thomas Tuchel knows more about
09:10football than I do.
09:13Because just look at this, right? This is all of Mexico's crosses prior to the red card. God, I hope
09:18you're sitting down here.
09:18And these are all of Mexico's crosses after the red card.
09:23And what is really clever from Thomas Tuchel is not just adding Dan Byrne there because he's really tall and
09:28he heads the ball away.
09:29But by going to a five at the back, all of a sudden, you keep four players in the box
09:35while allowing one of them to constantly get out and stop the cross.
09:39So the gaps between the defenders don't open up big enough to get players into these half spaces.
09:45And also, with Gordon and Bellingham, later Morgan Rodgers, working their arse off as the outside player in this three,
09:53when they shuffle across, they still allow you to go man for man, even when they've got two players in
09:59that position.
10:00Yes, it opens up a gap over here, but that's literally the opposite space to where the ball is.
10:05So he's got five at the back and it also feels like they've still got four in the middle, even
10:09though they don't.
10:10And because you've got this ability to keep sending someone out to pressurise the player with the ball,
10:15it means that while Mexico do get all of these crosses in, when you watch the game, none of them
10:20are what you would have called optimal.
10:23They're very rarely on the strong foot or in a lot of space or with time to pick anything out.
10:28They are rushed. They are early. They are inaccurate.
10:31And that's because England kept working really hard to put pressure on the player making the cross.
10:38So in other words, while the quantity of these crosses into the box was really high,
10:42what England did really well was keep the quality of them very low.
10:46And even when they did then come in, this will blow your mind, these are all of the defensive contributions.
10:53Look at how many are in the box.
10:54The defensive contributions from England, again, after the red card.
11:01Like these are headers, tackles, interceptions.
11:03They gave the ball back to Mexico. Fine, have it.
11:06But every time it got anywhere near their box, they won.
11:10They won collectively. They won individually.
11:12They just dominated this space.
11:15And honestly, best of all, these are these contributions, but just the ones made by the substitutes.
11:22So you can see how impactful those two changes were.
11:27Jed Spencer's ability to win individual 1v1s and Dan Byrne's aerial domination.
11:32I wonder if anybody, I wonder if anybody, like maybe two months ago, saw that coming.
11:38We're likely to dominate every single game in the group phase.
11:40There's not really a lot of tests there.
11:41And it's almost a case of he'll still start O'Reilly because he wants us to be front foot and
11:46be thinking about what we can do on the ball first.
11:49And if, say, it gets to the last 20 minutes and you've got a lead against a really dangerous side,
11:55right, oh, okay, then I can throw Jed Spencer on for 1v1s.
11:58And I know Dan Byrne's selection is getting scrutinized.
12:02I can guarantee you, if you're standing in a pub beer garden at 2 in the morning and we are
12:07getting bombarded with crosses into the box, holding on to a lead in a quarterfinal,
12:10and you see Dan Byrne's number go up, you will feel better.
12:14And yes, look, I know that's incredibly self-absorbed on me, but you've got to admit that is, that's pretty
12:20spooky.
12:20I will be putting the lottery on.
12:22But yes, anyway, I think the reason this has to go down as one of England's greatest ever tournament performances
12:29is stuff like this,
12:31because you just never, ever see that sort of togetherness, that determination, that doggedness from players in that shirt.
12:39Like just the sheer refusal to let the circumstances be an excuse.
12:43You are a man down.
12:45You are the away team, the altitude, the crowd, the refs giving some really questionable decisions.
12:50You have seen so many England teams just shrug their shoulders and decide, oh well, guess it's not our day,
12:58guess it's not our tournament.
12:59But this team absolutely refused to lie down here.
13:04And when Tuchel at the start of the tournament was getting criticism for the selections,
13:08and he said it's about as much as building a good camp as it is building a good squad,
13:13you see why in moments like that, because it's all intangibles having the right personalities at the training ground, in
13:20the squad,
13:21like that stuff, it's hard to quantify, but it's moments like this when you do see it on the pitch.
13:27Just that individualism that I think defines so many of England's failures at major tournaments just is not here.
13:36It's been completely replaced, I think, by a togetherness.
13:39And as the challenges are getting bigger and stronger and harder, so is this team.
13:44Like they're rising to meet every single one of them.
13:47So you are allowed, I think, at this point, to start wondering about what exactly they can do at this
13:54World Cup,
13:55because Norway are good.
13:57Norway deserve to be in those quarterfinals, but England are a better team.
14:01Norway might have one better player, but England are a better team.
14:05They should up their levels again and win that, you would think.
14:10So look, I'm not getting carried away.
14:12You cannot underestimate any of the opposition England will have to face from this moment on.
14:16But like I said, I had nine hours sleep in the last three days.
14:20I may be prone to a small amount of delirium.
14:23And in that delirium, I can see Harry Kane lifting something very shiny above his head.
14:29But you have to allow me that.
14:31You have to allow me that.
14:32I'm not a well man.
14:33But yes, there you go.
14:34Nice to be back in the blue screen and the London and the England and all of that.
14:39We're still covering the entire rest of the World Cup, even though I do sound like I'm about to die
14:42in the next couple of hours.
14:44So you can subscribe to us here at the Adam Cleary football channel.
14:47The button's around somewhere.
14:48You can get me across all the social medias at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y, where I do
14:53other things.
14:54Mostly still this, but you get the idea.
14:56And until next time, did I do the coming home joke at the start?
15:00I think I did.
15:01We'll leave it there.
15:02Bye.
15:03Well done, everyone.
15:05Bye.
Comments