England beat Norway in the World Cup quarter-final on Saturday, but manager Thomas Tuchel was not satisfied with what he saw.
"We made life very difficult for ourselves," Tuchel said, according to BBC Sport. "The result is fantastic but I'm not happy with the performance."
One of the more visible decisions of the match was the halftime substitution of Declan Rice, the Arsenal midfielder who had been ill for most of the week leading up to the game. Tuchel explained after the match that the move was both tactical and precautionary. The primary goal was to add offensive presence in the second half, but Rice was chosen over Elliot Anderson to come off because of his physical condition going into the game.
"Declan, we made a decision in half-time to become more offensive, to have a bit of an offensive shift," Tuchel said. "We had to take Elliott [Anderson] or Declan out [and] knowing that Declan struggled after the last three days where he was most of the time in bed, I knew he cannot survive 90 minutes. There was a possibility that it goes 120 [minutes], so I didn't want to waste another change, so the decision was to take Declan out earlier than he needed to go out, just to save us another change later down the match."
Tuchel was also critical of how England performed on the ball. He cited technical errors, a lack of pace in the build-up, and an inability to sustain the kind of possession-based pressure he wants from his side. He did acknowledge the players' character, saying he was "impressed with the effort, team spirit and belief to overcome adversity," but made clear that the performance level needs to rise.
BBC Sport reported on the tactical details behind Tuchel's frustration. England attacked in a 3-2-5 shape, with Marc Guehi, John Stones, and Ezri Konsa forming the back three. Rice and Anderson sat in midfield, while left-back Nico O'Reilly pushed forward to give England an extra player against Norway's back line. Norway defended in a 4-5-1 block, and Tuchel wanted England to play short, repetitive passes to draw them out before switching the ball quickly to attackers in space. He did not see enough of that.
"I am also a football coach and I think we can play better," Tuchel said. "We had a lot of momentum swings for both teams. We made life difficult in the way we played, sloppy, a lot of technical mistakes, not fast enough, not repetitive enough."
England now face Argentina in the semi-final on Wednesday at Atlanta Stadium, kickoff at 20:00 BST. It will be England's second World Cup semi-final since 2018. Argentina are the defending champions and stand between England and their first appearance in a World Cup final in 60 years.
The other semi-final takes place Tuesday, when France face Spain at Dallas Stadium. Kylian Mbappe has scored eight goals in the tournament and sits one behind Lionel Messi in the race to become the World Cup's all-time top scorer. Spain enter the match on a 36-game unbeaten run, the longest in their national team history. Lamine Yamal, who turns 19 on the eve of the match, has scored just once so far in the tournament.
For Rice and the rest of the England squad, there are just a few days to rest before Wednesday. Win or lose, they will play again at the weekend before the summer break begins.
