12% - Average possession between Anthony Gordon's opener and Lautaro Martínez's winner (55th to 92nd minute):
12% - 🏴 England
88% - 🇦🇷 Argentina
Trapped.
Said it before, I'll say it again - Manchester United dodged a bullet not hiring Thomas Tuchel. He is a glorified interim option, or a tournament manager. He makes baffling selection & tactical choices, is primarily negative & footballing ethos does not fit.
Asking for disaster.
Such basics man. Why on earth would you give them so much space, forget the others, Messi of all people? Suicidal subs, the final 30 minutes was a complete disaster of a gameplan from Tuchel. Look how Argentina pressed at 2-1 up, look how we pressed from 1-0 up?
Mbappe lost his first ever World Cup match 21 games into his career (longest unbeaten WC run of all time) and he’s being talked about as a perennial loser. Goat level standards
Lionel Messi, one of soccer’s wealthiest and most famous stars, has become the subject of conspiracy theories from some World Cup watchers who accuse FIFA of displaying favoritism toward him and the Argentine team.
Read more: https://t.co/3DaHG1iqOy
Photo: Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images
Given the way the rules are written, the ref had no real choice but to call a penalty. But this is a perfect example of how the cost of a penalty to the defending team is often vastly disproportionate to the benefit that team got by committing the penalty.
Yamal doesn't play this ball - he lets it deflect off his arm. And he has no real possibility of turning into a good scoring chance from where he was. So Diane's interference cost Spain maybe 0.2 expected goals (if that). But the benefit to Spain of the penalty was 0.8 expected goals, That's an outsized benefit - which is why players look for penalties.
If you played collegiate sports at a high level to professionally then you are completely different… all you need is someone to challenge you and you will get back in that mode!!