Article #80333

No successful tackles after the 63rd minute and failure to break up play through fouls also played their part in World Cup semi-final defeat

There will be coaching courses of the future that use footage of England’s performance against Argentina to illustrate how not to defend a one-goal lead. If that sounds harsh, the data from the match justifies that stance.

Many ugly statistics emerged once the postmortem began. The most damning came from OptaJoe, who noted England had 12% possession in the 30 minutes between Anthony Gordon’s goal and Argentina’s equaliser. “That is the lowest by a team to be winning for at least 10 minutes in a World Cup match in the last 60 years,” they added.