There are matches you win and there are matches you win 3-2 at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City against the co-hosts with 10 men for 40 minutes after Mexico supporters spent the previous night outside England’s team hotel in the Santa Fe district using fireworks, air horns, drums, motorbikes, and loud music to prevent the players from sleeping, in a gesture of hospitality that Ecuador’s football federation, which had been subjected to the same treatment, formally complained to FIFA was “far removed from the principles of fair play, equality and unity.” England won. Tuchel then told the BBC the referees were “just not good enough,” and former England goalkeeper Joe Hart told the BBC that Tuchel “got that wrong,” making it the first time in this tournament that an England win has generated more post-match controversy than an England loss would have.
Harry Kane scored twice, including the winning penalty, and Jude Bellingham scored twice, which is the kind of individual contribution that makes a manager’s post-match complaint about officiating feel like a scheduling conflict. Defender Jarell Quansah was sent off in the 50th minute, leaving England to defend with 10 men for 40 minutes against the co-hosts in their own fortress. Australia’s referee Alireza Faghani initially waved away a late Mexico penalty appeal, then was overruled by a VAR team from South America, which gave Mexico the spot kick that produced 30 very tense minutes until Kane’s winner. Tuchel’s objection to the South American VAR team in a match played in Mexico is not difficult to understand. Hart’s suggestion that Tuchel should have parked it after such an improbable win is also not difficult to understand.
England’s right-back situation, which Gary Neville called “not right from day one” and Jamie Carragher called “bizarre,” has now produced a tournament in which both specialist right-backs, Reece James and Tino Livramento, are injured, and Djed Spence, brought as a left-back, is playing right-back, and Jordan Henderson has suffered what Tuchel called a “really bad” wrist injury falling over the advertising boards. England face Norway in the quarter-finals, whose striker Erling Haaland has scored seven goals in four matches, a detail Tuchel is presumably aware of and not currently addressing in the press.
England are in the quarter-finals. They have won three matches by a combined margin of one goal. Tuchel has not sung God Save The King.
When the manager blames the referees after his 10-man team wins at the Azteca and his own former goalkeeper publicly corrects him, which post-match press conference produced more damage than the match?
Sources
GB News: Thomas Tuchel hits out at referees in England’s win over Mexico
GB News: Joe Hart criticises Tuchel comments after England win
GB News: England’s preparations thrown into chaos by Mexico fans hotel leak
