Jacob

[Troll Football NP🇳🇵 @FootballTrollNP]

World Cup 2022 vs World Cup 2026

[Jacob @CFCJhendo]

@markgoldbridge Div

[Charlie 🇪🇺 @CharlieSafc_]

Tell you what that’s a proper hot take

[Ben Jacobs @JacobsBen]

🚨 BREAKING: Chelsea confirm Morgan Rogers has joined from Aston Villa for £117m. No add-ons. A club-record fee. 6+1 contract

Deal done within 48 hours after talks between Behdad Eghbali and Nassef Sawiris.

Eghbali, the sporting directors and Xabi Alonso heavily involved.

Rogers’ close friend Cole Palmer and Reece James part of the pitch.

Rogers to wear No.17. Will link up with the squad after the pre-season tour to Australia and Asia.

Deal negotiated by Sam Kohansal from Rogers’ agency Footwork.🔵

[Chelsea FC @ChelseaFC]

He chose Chelsea.

[Chelsea FC @ChelseaFC]

🌡️📉

[Out of Context Football Manager @nocontextfm1]

Morgan Rogers signing, Alejandro Garnacho leaving and Anthony Taylor retiring today...

Is this the greatest day in every Chelsea fan's life?

[CulerGavi @CulerGavi]

Born too late to see dinosaurs
Born too early to see flying cars
Born just in time to witness Leo Messi

Thank you for everything, we will miss you ❤️

[679 Enthusiast @marionumber4]

The FIFA President every time he sees Donald Trump:

[Michael Lavelle @mikelavelle93]

When you give way to someone at a junction and they don’t give you a thank you wave

[Jacob @CFCJhendo]

Gimme gimme 💙💙#chelsea

[Juan Garcia | #1 @Juan_Garsia01]

يوم غاب ميسي واعطوا جيريمي ماثيو يشوت فاول

[CK9️⃣💎 🇬🇭 @KA_1dn]

Jordan Henderson’s World Cup Highlights

[180 @1one80eighty]

😭😭😭😭😭😭

[Hassan @ftblhassan]

Experiencing all these in real time has been gutting

[Daniel Abrahams @DanAbrahams77]

No…

It wasn’t Thomas Tuchel’s substitutions…

Anthony Gordon scored in the 55th minute. The (already) infamous substitutions were made in the 82nd minute.

England had a measly 12% possession from the moment the ball hit the Argentinian net. It wasn’t the substitutions that made the difference (although perhaps they didn’t help)…it was the mindset of the England players after they scored. And this happens to England in major tournaments again and again and again and again…

So what happened? Performance anxiety…

“Don’t be the player to make a mistake”
“Let’s just see this through”

These aren’t thoughts. They’re feelings. Feelings in the pit of the stomach. Feelings that cascade through the whole body. Feelings that generate hesitancy, inhibition…and in the words of Thomas Tuchel post game, passiveness

A Low Intent - energy-back. Arguably the biggest killer in high performance sport is a drop in intent.

A couple of months ago I had the honour of being on The Overlap. As I described to Gary, Roy, Ian and Scholesy - “A drop in intent can make great players look very average.” Last night, a drop in intent made the England players, great players, look shockingly poor - an energy-back negatively impacting awareness, anticipation, decision-making, physicality, technical and tactical play.

The same happened against Spain in the Euros final 2024 and against Italy in the Euros final against Italy in 2020. And in countless tournaments prior.

Energy-back vs Energy-forward…

Argentina - energy-forward. Singing their national anthem with gusto. As aggressive in the press and in duels as you’re going to see. Slightly bending the rules. Being nasty…in their opponents’ faces…

…competing with so much passion and adoration for each other and with so much want and will and determination that there’s no room for anxieties (fears, uncertainties, doubts)…

No room…

This is hard to accomplish. Brutally, disgustingly hard. Phenomenally hard. Why? Because striving to play with energy-forward under pressure is so metabolically costly. It requires enormous will-power and tenacity…which needs an enormous amount of energy. It feels horrible. It feels exhausting. That’s why so many teams fail to deliver under pressure.

No, it wasn’t Tuchel’s substitutions. It’s a failure to address a national characteristic - a socio-cultural and bio-psychological tendency to play with fear (energy-back) under pressure.

This needs to be tackled now for the 2028 Euros and the 2030 World Cup. Plans need to be put in place…mental frameworks need to be laid down.

Attention
Intensity
Intent

England (like all nations and like all club teams) need mental frameworks that help players to compete with High Attention; Optimal Intensity; and (most importantly) High Intent under pressure.

And there is a behavioural template that shines like a beacon through the fog of complexity in the world game - the Argentinian National Team…

…they are, quite simply, the warriors of international football

[Chris Devane @CDevane89]

Tuchel definitely dropped too deep too early.

But no one moaned when we done it against Mexico or Norway because it went our way.

Semi final in South America is a very good World Cup performance.

[Sam @SamCKx]

We got within 15 minutes of a World Cup final and now everyone absolutely lays into the manager who got us there within 18 months of being appointed.

We do not have a squad of world class players. I’m as gutted as you all are, but this was a massive achievement.

I refuse to get on yet another self destructive band wagon.