Argentina break England’s hearts and reach the World Cup final

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1:30World Cup's, you'll never sing that.

1:39Wednesday at the Mercedes-Benz, England's World Cup comes to an end. Enzo and Lautaro and England are left kicking themselves, which previously had been Argentina's job. We look back on the semi-final and what awaits this weekend as England face another third-force play-off and Spain take on Argentina in the World Cup final.

2:02Wednesday afternoon in Los Angeles. England have just hit their wonder wall against Argentina. And live from the Totally Ranch, we bring you the autopsy live. For those asking if we've got anyone non-English on, I give you Tom Williams of Wales. Resident Argentinian correspondent, respectfully. Very nicely done. Tim is here with us as well. How are you doing, Tim? Yeah, you know. I didn't expect England to win, so it's fine. All right. And as a very special treat for us, we are joined by the Ranch alumnus, Duncan Alexander, who's back in Box Park, High Wycombe, I think. Box Park, South East London, where all the glasses are empty and everyone is very sad.

2:47Some glasses might be half full. A lot of Argentine glasses will be very much full, of course. And by the way, if you're joining us live as opposed to hearing this later on, thank you so much for making time on your Wednesday evening for this. We've got another of these lined up if you are so inclined and you find today's one agreeable after the final on Sunday. Yeah. Argentina, huh? They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity or remorse or fear and they absolutely will not stop ever. They always find a way. Yeah. I mean, every game against Argentina is basically an arm wrestle.

3:26unless they just win it easily, which we did in the group stage. But I mean, since then, every single game has just been an arm wrestle and they just seem to really relish that. And at no point in the game today did you think that they were in grave danger of going. I think if anything, England probably scored their goal too soon. And yeah, Argentina just kept grinding away. And I mean, you look at each of their knockout round matches, they've not been massively convincing. They've not been remotely convincing really in terms of taking control of games and just putting them to bed, but they just find a way.

4:01They find a way, and a certain Leo Messi is often the way that they find. Just on the subject of England, because we're going to have a lot of chat about England, where it went wrong, as Tweckers says, the revisionism is front and centre tonight. A very good tournament for England, which came apart under pressure against probably the mentally best side in the world. What do you say to that, Tim Spears? Yeah, I just kind of feel like the game was in England's hands. I don't know if this is a sort of an Anglo-centric perspective, but it felt to me like it was England's game to win. And they sort of threw it away with the approach that they had.

4:35It made Argentina's comeback just inevitable to me. It wasn't just the two goals. They hit the post twice. Pickford made a string of saves. It was one-way traffic for the last 20. It just felt like in that second-half hydration break that the initiative was handed to Argentina. and obviously you have to give full credit to them for taking it in the manner that they've done remarkably throughout the competition in each knockout stage match now. Dean Brown, 1990 commenting, here's an idea, set up for half an hour in a way that gives the greatest player of all time endless touches and time on the board, genius, what a guy.

5:09Duncan, are you armed with pitchforks and torches? Interesting that viewer had 1990 in his handle because, you know, it feels like England have been stuck in this pattern of hope since 1990. I remember thinking, well, there's always next time then. And here we are, and each World Cup ticks by. And yeah, I don't think I've ever seen a team hand the initiative to a probably slightly inferior team as much as England did in the second half tonight. I mean, as you said, they scored too early, which is ridiculous when you score early on in the second half. And it was the most inevitable comeback you'll ever see in football.

5:47And I think, you know, in 1986, there was the hand of God to rail against. In 1998, there was obviously Diego Simeone and Beckham. I mean, there's no one to blame in this game, apart from England themselves and Thomas Tuchel. And it's, yeah, maybe this was par for England getting to the semis, but it just feels like an absolute punch in the stomach to go out like that, like playing 5-4-1 with, you know, every middling defender in Premier League history on the pitch at the same time. It's just, it wasn't the one. Duncan, you know, we launched straight into the game analysis. I haven't even asked you how you've been doing.

6:21How's everything been there back home, back in reality? Well, clearly I miss you guys infinitely and wake up, you know, at a different time to you, but also crying because I miss you so much. But it's been all right. You know, it's as hot here as it is in LA. So that's been handy to re-acclimatise. And I've been head down in the Tour de France, which for any England fan who's now fed up with football, which I think there might be a swathe tonight. Is it over here actually, Duncan? I know, I heard that, yeah. But there's another 10 stages of the tour, so why not pivot to a different sport and forget about England's decline?

7:01Okay, do you know what? On that very note, let's get a quick moment of the day before we get into the meat and the bones and all the other bits, the guts, the grizzly bits, and well, there's some grizzly bits of England's semi-final with Argentina. But moment of the day, just as a brief palate cleanser, Tom. Second minute of the game. Oh, here we go. Jude Bellingham gets the ball, midway inside his own half, lays it off to a teammate. And Leandro Paredes just flattens him from behind for no reason whatsoever. No reason. Completely gratuitous. And it just set the tempo. I mean, the first half was incredible.

7:37We had our first shot in the 30, our first attempt of any note in the 33rd minute. there were more fouls and more free kicks than there was goal mouth action but it was I mean absolutely gripping I found it captivating I mean Argentina as is often their want doing everything that they could to spoil the game and try and drag England into a you know into a good old fashioned ding dong England doing their best to resist that but nevertheless they were laying on a little bit of it giving a little bit back I thought it was a little bit of Elliot Anderson here and there yeah the cheeky elbow here and there but I thought it was absolutely tremendous that's football heritage That's what football tournaments at this stage should be about, as well as all the football and the goals and the nice stuff.

8:17Right. NGL. And we will come on to other moments of the day in a second. But let's just touch on how that first half played out, because I'm not going to lie. I think a lot of us were kind of hoping to see a bit of edge to this game. You don't want to see it, but at the same time, you very much do want to see it. You're not averse for it if it's going to happen. The stats, so 19 fouls in the first half, the first game on record in World Cup history ever, in any World Cup match ever, to have no shots in the opening half hour. The previous record for a longest wait for a shot was, oh, what's this, England's last game against Norway in the quarterfinal.

8:51Grace Robertson probably summing it up quite nicely with the tweet, football bloody hell, but without the football. Well, I mean, it started before the match with, well, in fact, it started in 1982 for a lot of people, clearly. do we go um but you but you could you could you know you could certainly feel that in the stadium but the barricade of the national anthems i haven't seen or heard that during this tournament any national anthem sort of booed or barracked but you couldn't by all accounts you couldn't hear god save the king in the stadium which is a blessing in disguise as well to be fair but still within sort of 30 seconds of kickoff you know the tone was set by uh was it paredes no or was it um it was Fernandes on Anderson, I think, was one of those where he leaves an arm in the back of his head.

9:35And this continued. There were sort of running battles. Paredes and Bellingham were going at each other. Fernandes and Anderson were going at each other. And it could have descended into absolute carnage. I was thinking there's a Wikipedia page for this battle written all over it. But I have to say credit to the referee because if he'd have started handing out yellow cards in the first minute, which he definitely could have done, those challenges were yellow card worthy, but he obviously saw it coming. And he had a tactical approach to the game as well. Right. And he didn't start handing out yellows.

10:03If he had, and he'd kept that level of yellow, then you're talking 15 by half-time, because it was non-stop. But it was still engrossing with, what, 11 fouls and no shots before the first hydration break. But it was very, very watchable. What would you call it? Would it be the battle at the Benz? Something like that. At the Benz, yeah. Mayhem at the Muscle. The Agro in Atlanta. Oh, that's another. Crikey. Tim, what was your moment of the day, though? I mean, it feels slightly redundant now, But this is the moment at the time that stirred me more than any moment during the match, which was Jed Spence's incredible tackle on Simeone.

10:38The game was barely opened up, but I think it was Messi and Fernandes who found Simeone. Basically going through on goal. He's in the box. Spence is chasing him down. And he's obviously going in for the tackle. And it's going to be a penalty or a brilliant moment. and yeah he takes ball and man and a brilliant goal saving challenge he gets about five people coming up to him congratulating him producer Charlie was shouting Bobby Moore it was it was you know it's redundant at the end but a great moment and he had a really good match actually and that was just after the goal after the England goal as well so you know spirits were high we were just seeing a picture there of of Giuliano Simeone Diego Simeone's son of course and I was moved to offer which nobody's picked at their moment of the day how much Giuliano to me only looks like if Gianfranco Zola had been born in Fort Apache, Buenos Aires, which I stand by.

11:33But let's move on to Duncan. What was your moment of the day, Duncan? Well, before we get on to that, I mean, I would echo what Tim said about Jed Spence or Sir Jed Spence, perhaps. I mean, it's such a shame that that tackle has happened in a game England lost, because if England had won, I think it would have gone down as one of the great, great tackles that, you know, a statue would have been made at some point. But my moment of day, as you know, I've been ensconced in the Tour de France and there's been some good banter among the riders about the World Cup with French riders teasing Belgian riders a few days ago when they knocked them out or Belgium got knocked out.

12:11And then today, I looked at quite a few Spanish riders. Juan Ayuso came to the presentation wearing a Spain shirt and got roundly booed. And then there was a point where Javier Romo rode past Kevin Voquelin, a French rider, and was just doing 2-1 at him as he rode past. So, you know, it's good to see the World Cup is so big and, you know, occupies people so much that it's actually infiltrating other sporting events. But I now, you know, a few hours later, I think mocking two undefeats is actually, you know I've changed my mind it's actually a bad thing if you're a cyclist then you're doing the old 2-1 that means you're doing a look mum no hands so that's a you know you could do it with one hand I guess I feel like it hits harder if you're doing it with both hands are there any Argentine cyclists in the peloton there Duncan?

12:57I don't think there are any in the race no which is perhaps good because I'm not sure the sort of antics they're up to in the first half translate safely to the peloton but yeah All right, well, let's talk about the antics that both teams were up to for the 90 minutes. Let's get into Argentina 2, England 1.

13:23England went 1-0 up through Anthony Gordon. They were still 1-0 up and heading for the final with four minutes to go, Tim, when, oh no, they concede to that wonderful shot from Enzo Fernandes. Yikes. So we're set for extra time, but oh no. Now Lautaro Martinez has powered in for the second straight game. A goal for Argentina. Certain Leo Messi with the two assists. He's now on four alongside his eight goals for this tournament. 12 in World Cup history. And Argentina will play Spain on Sunday. We'll talk about their prospects against the Spanish in greater depth on Saturday when we preview the final, maybe a bit at the end of today's show.

14:09But again, they always find a way. And we've celebrated the fact that since 2019, they have never lost a knockout game. And in this World Cup, they did it against Cape Verde. Late, they did it against Egypt. Late, they did it against Switzerland. Late, what is it about this side? We've talked a lot at this tournament about how successful they've been over the last few years. It's been, was it 2019, their last competitive defeat? they've won the last two Copa Americas they've won the last World Cup and it is the same group of players you go back to 2022 and they won games in very similar fashion at the 2022 World Cup penalty shootouts and kind of digging in deep and grinding their way through the difficult moments they've lost Angel Di Maria but apart from that it's pretty much the exact same group of players playing the exact same kind of football and they have such complete faith in what they're doing they don't panic they don't get hassled out of their stride There was that moment during the game today when Christian Romero has the ball on the edge of his own six-yard box in the Argentina area.

15:13Just continuing the unlikely Tottenham Hotspur summer that we've been living through here. He has Anthony Gordon and Jude Bellingham charging towards him. And he just plays a pass, shifts it from foot to foot, plays a pass out to his full-back as if it's the easiest thing in the world. And they just seem to relish the kind of football that they play together in this team. So many kind of passing players. And so they're able to move up and down the pitch relatively easily. And in the middle, you've got Lionel Messi, who's the greatest footballer of all time and who was absolutely exceptional once again.

15:45Not so much a hot girl summer, a hot Spurs summer, this one here at the World Cup. Lionel Messi, if there's a silver lining for football fans who are not too heartbroken from England's point of view, is it the fact that you're watching Lionel Messi in a game which could have been his last meaningful football match for many people, with due respect to MLS. And instead, in the final 20 minutes, he showed at the 39, he's still got it. He can still snatch a World Cup final place from the jaws of defeat. Yeah, he was absolutely front and centre. And it's remarkable to think that just a couple of World Cups ago, we were saying this guy, World Cup's not quite for Messi.

16:23For the last two tournaments, he has completely dominated in pretty much every match he's played. He's made a huge contribution to Argentina, and winning every single time in the last two World Cups. It was remarkable how sort of in the first half, you know, with the tactics they employed, they weren't even sort of bothered about trying to make a match of it. You know, they were just like, this is our approach for the first half, come what may. And they sort of didn't really seem to care what had happened. They just knew that as long as they're sort of one goal, maybe even two goals within reach, then the last half an hour, they're going to mount a comeback.

16:56They went very direct, lots of crosses, lots of long shots. Pickford was called into action a lot of times Central defenders heading things away They picked up the tempo With about 20 minutes left Just after their second hydration break And it was basically Attack v defence To allow Messi So much time on the ball for those Closing 20 minutes Just completely amplifies England's frazzled approach to tactics They were just sat deep And just trying to power their way through Like they had in the Mexico match without sort of paying attention to the likes of, yeah, Mr Messi. It worked against Mexico, not so much this time.

17:34From minutes 72 to 92, England attempted 12 passes. That's from minutes 67 to 92. They attempted 12 passes, completed five of them. I mean, half of them were just Pickford to Dunburn. Right. So 12 passes attempted, five completed. Possession, 7.5%. This is from minutes 67 to 92. Extraordinary. Argentina in the meantime attempted 155 passes and completed 147 of them and had 110 touches Kane am I right in saying he finished without a single touch in the opposition box that's correct and those numbers there that sound absolutely nonsensical they're true they're true apparently this is incredible they're absolutely damning of that second half which I think is probably one of the most disgraceful halves of English football history to be honest I mean it was reminiscent of extra time in England played Italy at Euro 2012 where they they basically did the same thing and got the penalty shootout but yeah basically didn't get out of their own third for the for the whole of extra time but it was it was such a ridiculous way to approach the game because England were the better side in the first half and until they scored the goal and if you you know if you look at the momentum chart which I can see not everyone wants to live their life looking at momentum charts but if you look at it England score and then immediately give up every bit of of kind of advantage and momentum to Argentina and it was like as Tim said you know it works against Mexico but Mexico didn't have Lionel Messi and just the the corner that um that Argentina scored the equaliser from they did that corner about three or four times in the second half and it was like they're gonna Messi's gonna take it sort of semi-short and then get it back and then and they just didn't learn and it was it was incredibly frustrating because it's rare to see an England team get to a semi-final and almost feel like the favourites and they kind of, they could, if they'd, I genuinely think if they'd have carried on in the way they had been playing when they weren't 1-0 up, they would have picked off Argentina again on the break because Argentina obviously had to come out and try to get an equaliser and it's just baffling really, I think, you know, Tuchel came into this job with this with this kind of like, I'm not going to be like Gareth Southgate, I'm not going to be like Royal Hodgson I'm going to, you know, harness Premier League energy and attack and when it came to the crucial bit of the whole tournament he just reverted to even worse, even more defensive than that.

19:53And it was, yeah, it is baffling. And I think, you know, from watching the game in London tonight, I think there's a lot of anger. There's a lot of kind of people just can't really understand why England did that in the second half. It just seemed so self-inflicted. And it was the manager, not the players, Tim. Well, it feels that way to me. But his substitutions as well. Yeah, I was seeing him slightly ramped it up just before the hydration break. and Messi was starting to have a bit of influence. And the hydration break, then Tuchel then decides to go 5-4-1. I think it was James moving to midfield at that point.

20:30And yeah, they went with wingbacks. But I have to say, I've lost a bit of respect for him really because it was just such a basic, it was like a non-league manager's kind of move. You know, away in an FA Cup tie against the Premier League side. You go 5-4-1, you stick a left back at left midfield. But it wasn't just being defensive and going five at the back. It was the fact that there was no out ball. Kane was far too deep. And also, they weren't really trying to keep possession. In my mind, you send on someone like Saka, who can at least retain and hold the ball, or someone to kind of thread play, but not just sit and defend.

21:08Or even stick Rashford up front. Because Kane, as you say to him, he kept dropping deeper. He looked completely knackered in that game. He was trying to close people down at the end and couldn't get near anyone. If you just have someone vaguely quick sat in the centre circle, at least it gives you an out ball if you're going to sit that deep. And it was just, I mean, I've never seen a team invite pressure onto themselves when they've dominated a game or, you know, been on top in a game up until that point. You haven't watched enough of Trappertoni's Italy is all I can say to that, but that didn't work out too well for them either, Tom.

21:41There's something vaguely comical about the sight of Marcus Rashford and Ivan Toni preparing to come on after England had just conceded the second goal. Ivan Toni, who hadn't kicked the board in anger since the start of the tournament. I thought Argentina's winner, the nature of it, was particularly on the nose. And it was an English-style goal. Guy gets to the byline and puts in a cross and the fella at the back post nods it in. Except that, you know, on this occasion, the guy heading in is only 5 '9". And England have five defenders on the pitch at that point. One of whom is 6 '7", Dan Burton, and Lautaro Martinez gets a free header.

22:15We're giving him a kick-in, so we should maybe just give him a bit of a defence. Thomas Tuchel? Yeah. He says he has no regrets and it was one of their best performances, which is, of course, in stark contrast, the way he responded to the, for many people, heroic victory against Norway. I mean, he was absolutely furious. Well, I mean, he says we got too passive after we scored and conceded a lot of chances, but I would say that he added to that with his subs and clearly told him during the hydration break, you know, you've got to sit deeper now. this is it, we're going to try and see this 1-0 through here we're not going to try and score, we're not going to try and keep the ball we're just going to try and see it through but this is the whole point of why he was hired because this is his most sort of Southgate moment that he's had really in his defensive approach but he was hired to not do that, he was hired to be proactive and for England to be able to win these type of games certainly from that position It almost feels like England can't ever escape from this reality you know like Capella was in the ground tonight and like it just feels like it doesn't matter you could end up hiring the most you could get Aussie our dealers in charge although maybe not against Argentina but you know England will always just do this at the crucial moment in a semi-final or a big or a final you know it just feels like we can't really escape it now and that's that's the the country's fate of football.

23:34Announce Ange that's the that's the campaign. Just on on Tuchel one of the unfortunate things about the extent to which he got things wrong at the end is that so many of his other choices today paid off I mean Jed Spence at left back raised multiple eyebrows and yet he was absolutely brilliant and right from the start in and out of possession the highlight being that you know fantastic challenge on Simeone but throughout he was exceptional the choice to play with Morgan Rodgers and Anthony Gordon on the wings Rodgers who I mean very rarely plays wide right for Aston Villa. I'm not sure I'd ever played wide right for England, but ends up creating the goal.

24:14Gordon, who's picked ahead of Rashford and scores his first goal of the tournament. Harry Kane being given the freedom. He pings the pass forward to Rodgers. So many of the other choices worked out right up until the moment that England went ahead. And then it was kind of downhill from there. That was a lovely goal, wasn't it, Duncan? What did you think when England took the lead? I was briefly happy, I must admit. it i mean it was a very i mean to two calls kind of like we're going to play like a premier league team that was a very premier league goal wasn't it like a midfielder winning the ball putting out to rogers who pinged in a lovely cross and a really kind of a better finish from gordon than it than it first looked he had to really sort of arc his body to get in and obviously kept up the run technically of no premier league player scoring for england at this world cup if you if you count gordon as a barcelona player already um spanish but yeah but yeah i mean it yeah i think that was what England could have done and we knew that Argentina's weakness was their defense it just seems so baffling to go into the lead and be like well we know your your one strength still is your attack and your the fact you've got arguably the greatest player of all time to to sort of conduct things so we're going to let you do that for 30 minutes and see what happens and yeah I mean I think I can't really remember a more frustrating match as an England uh watcher in my lifetime genuinely I think obviously the the Euro 2020 final was similar but I think England weren't as far along on their journey then in terms of getting to semis and finals quite often but you know Tuchel was brought in to kind of get over this mental block and just went you know back to back to square one quite literally the curious thing is that he had such a great record as a cup manager before this tournament and whether he panicked or what happened in this match the future for him his contract runs to the end of the next euros which is kind of a home competition for England who are co-hosting with Wales Scotland and the Republic of Ireland Tim will there be any move any groundswell for a regime change do you think it's difficult I mean he he had obviously been having a good tournament i think semi-finals is probably par given the route that england were faced with um but they'd overcome you know some pretty serious challenges along the way obviously that mexico game with the altitude basically an away game in mexico uh the comeback winning is norway um the changes he had been making were pretty proactive and were attacking and he and he'd selected the right team today he got so much right throughout the tournament but it's such an almighty blunder i think he will have lost a lot of people today and to kind of ask England to go into what is effectively a home Euros in two years' time, you know, you want the fans with Tuchel, I don't know, it's kind of going to be a bit of a line in the sand from this moment on, really.

27:09And obviously, you know, the games that are coming up in the next two years are not going to change anything either way, really. Right. He doesn't have the greatest record in terms of seeing out contracts, so Tuchel, certainly at club level, England's next game after the third, fourth play-off against France this Saturday will be against Spain, actually. So they do get their game against Spain, only it's in the Nations League in September. I think just on England, Tuchel will carry the can for what happened today, which I think is probably fair. But a lot of it to me feels cultural. Like Duncan was saying, how many times have we seen England go out of a tournament like this?

27:44The fact that when England wind up in situations where they're being tested, this sense of panic just takes over. And teams like Argentina, I'm not saying that there's a better way of doing things, but there's something in England's footballing DNA. And maybe it's the nature of Premier League football, the fact it's constantly end-to-end, but you just sense that England can't see out difficult moments in the way that other national teams can. It's really weird because I spent a long time abroad and the one thing that people there would always say about English clubs is that they never know when they're beaten.

28:16And you could put two, three goals past them, you could take big leads, but they never stop coming back at you. so with club football I think we've seen this in European competition countless times with Premier League sides you get one kind of mentality but apparently not with the national side I think that's quite telling I think that England more than any other country on in the world is a club football country you know you get it's probably the only country in the world where you have the debate would you rather your club won the league or your country won the World Cup and I think probably 60-40 would say they'd rather their club win stuff and you look at England games and it's all the flags, you know, Bristol Rovers and Hereford United and whatever.

28:54And I think... Some Man United fans barely even watch the national side, Duncan. Well, exactly, yeah, that's what I've heard. But I do think that England, the club game is so strong that it has impacted, obviously, the international team over a long time. But I think for the first time, we do have a togetherness and a level of just innate quality that should allow England to win World Cups and win Euros and, you know, we've got lost finals and lost semifinals in recent times. And yes, that is progress from where they were. But to do it like they did today, it just leaves such a sour taste. More than any other England reversal I can remember.

29:36England did go through a lot in this tournament. Mexico, the Heat in Miami. There have been a lot of them through a Premier League season as well, which is the toughest, most testing around. could it be as a kind of final excuse extenuating circumstances could there be an element of fatigue to what happened to England in that final 15-20 minutes? Fatigue during the tournament we certainly saw that with Declan Rice and a couple of others if you look at the winning goal sort of Spence actually sort of injures himself and then isn't able to sort of block the messy crosses he might have done he's sort of hobbling and then Stones had been dizzy a few moments before and they had to stop play and then he's like a yard off Martinez for the winning goal.

30:17And it just kind of felt in that moment, well, you know, England's walking wounded. And it's no coincidence to me that, you know, their goal scorers throughout pretty much the entire tournament, yeah, were ones who hadn't played in the Premier League last season. But there is a familiar pattern to these England big games now in that the World Cup 2018 semi, they take an early lead and can't hold on. They end up losing to Croatia. The Euros final, of course, you know, take the lead can't can't hold on aren't able to see the game out properly this is the same situation again but you can't imagine most countries spain france argentina approaching that sort of last 20-30 minutes in anywhere near the manner that england did and i guess that's why again the reason they hired tuchel was to kind of engineer this you're not going to engineer culture change in one managerial appointment but you can at least sort of you know do something with your first 11 to change how you play in the big matches.

31:11That's why it's such a letdown that it just felt so familiar. Maybe it's time for some foreign players. Try to foreign manager, naturalise a couple of Argentinians and Spaniards. Just saying. Len Messi, good lad. But I mean, to that point, England generally kind of like reflex now where they'll be like, well, the foreign coach didn't work. Let's go back to an English coach. but there's not really you know there's not really an option out there so I think Tuka will carry on but I think that's the sad thing is that the positivity and the kind of camaraderie that had been built up in this tournament was really special I thought you know it really grew as the tournament progressed and that's just been decimated in the space of 35 minutes in Atlanta and I don't think really he can get that back so it could be a fairly dreary couple of years and then, you know, what, another semi-final exit in a home tournament, so we go again back in a few weeks We've got the third-fourth play-off on Saturday against France and I'll tell you what, unless anybody's got anything else they want to say about this game or have we depressed England fans enough Tom, no, that's it we'll go on to Duncan?

32:31The only thing is that Obviously, everyone built up Kane and Bellingham, and I think they didn't really, for differing reasons, I think didn't really impact the game. Yeah, so we needed those two to step up, and they didn't, not necessarily their fault, but yeah, it kind of showed that England had, I think, relied on those two to drag them over the line, and when they couldn't do that, here we are. While we just reflect on individuals, yours Elliot Anderson again was absolutely outstanding like particularly obviously towards the end of the game he was as deep like everyone else was but for that he was everywhere Declan Rice was very much you know in a supporting role um he tackled Messi a couple of times he was just everywhere on the pitch basically like if you're in stark contrast to PSG fans watching Luca Dean the night before thinking who have we got here uh Man City fans watching that we we've got you one of the best midfielders in Europe at this time, joining them.

33:29So that's something we can all take. Manchester City will be happy. Fantastic. He's probably one of the highlights. In historical terms, Enzo Fernandes' face celebrating the goal, I think, had strong echoes of Thomas Muller in Euro 96 when Germany had won the penalty shootout. So, you know, that's something. There you go. I enjoyed the fact the game finished with England hoofing long balls towards a 6 '7 centre-back. Don't tell me Thomas Tuchel doesn't understand English football culture. Our game. He gets the club. Right. Well, perhaps Dan Byrne will start up front in Saturday's, he said, segwaying frantically, in Saturday's third, fourth playoff, which, as is traditional of late, will feature England as they take on France, who haven't been in one of those for, I think, 40 years.

34:13We'll talk about that and the other game this weekend on the Sunday in a second.

34:23What have we got this weekend? There's a final on Sunday Spain against Argentina which is that finalissimo which we never got to have the European champion against the world champion Football finds a way There we go That's going to be at Meadowland New Jersey but far more entertaining perhaps will be the third, fourth player which is going to be in Miami between France and England and won't feature a half-time or so music interlude. Have you seen that? Are you excited by that? Supposedly, so far, they haven't confirmed it's going to be half an hour, but they've announced that BTS, Justin Bieber, and Madonna are all featuring and some other artists as well.

35:03So hard to see how you're going to get them in and shift the sets in and out short of half an hour. Anyway, that's not... Jive Bunny would be the answer. And also breaking the very fabric of IFAB's rules, which state, you know, 15-minute halftime break. Right. Around that one. But, yeah, no, I think you can remember people getting angry when halftime got increased from 10 minutes to 15. Can you remember that? When did that happen, Duncan? Some early 90s, I think. But, yeah, people were like, well, the game is gone. You know, what are players going to do this extra five minutes? If only they could see the world we live in now.

35:42Yeah, well, absolutely. I feel the same way about hydration breaks, as you know. Anyway, the final will not feature... Hydrating that will be taking place in that 25 minutes. Players throwing up in the second half, sitting there drinking water for half an hour. Right, yeah. No, but seriously, don't take on too much fluids because that's actually medically bad for you. There won't be any Bayern Munich player in the final. That's the first time a World Cup final won't feature a player from FC Bayern since 1978. Isn't that incredible? However, there will be two Tottenham Hotspur players, hot Spurs summer with Romero and Poro Spurs winner in the World Cup for the third tournament running guaranteed because they had Lloris in 18 Romero 22 and now Poro or Romero Wow this is the year of the Spurs and that's the real quiz that's the real quiz Spain you will recall got through to the final having conceded only one goal in seven matches and shutting down pretty much every team they face including the supposedly death star-esque Kylian Mbappé's France do you see briefly Argentina having with their incredible ability to find results where none should exist Argentina have they got the code to unlock that Spanish side what do we think?

37:02I think it's going to be extremely even in terms of the way that they approach the game in terms of the way it plays out I think we'll see Argentina with a sort of a similarly rugged approach to what we saw against England today and then you've got the X factors of Messi and Yamal I mean it's set up beautifully South America's best team against Europe's best team the two great tournament teams of this sort of era it's almost impossible to sort of separate them I think and say look I don't even think there's a favourite I mean they're the two most coherent teams aren't they and we've been saying this for a few weeks I suspect Argentina will be happy for Spain to have the ball and not that Argentina necessarily a counter-attacking team but as a a team of spoilers i think you know that'll suit them perfectly well and there's that extraordinary photo isn't there of lino masi bathing laminia mar um and maybe you know this is the this is the season finale of that timeline and we can we can move on afterwards right talk about hydration very good well that's coming up on sunday we'll have a look forward to that get a little bit of spanish argentine perspective perhaps in our saturday show which will also feature our reaction to the third fourth playoff which takes place at two o 'clock our time so i'm guessing 10 o 'clock in the uk on saturday and we'll see france and england take on each other in the latest chapter of another great historical series henry v and all that tim and king he was by the way yeah i'm in with the third man myself but yeah right i don't respect him also the great golden boot race has completely stalled by the way they've all stopped scoring right Kane hasn't scored in his last two Messi hasn't scored in his last two and Mbappe and Haaland didn't score in their last match it's all it's all gone is it advantage Mbappe in this because instead of going into a final against well there is and there is historical precedent Jus Fontaine remember him 1958 and all that he went into the third place playoff having scored a paltry nine goals he scored four goals in the third place playoff and that is what gave him the historic mark of 13 that is probably going to survive unbeaten for another world cup unless someone does a madness yeah scoring world cup as as predicted by many uh wise men at the start of the tournament but um i mean obviously skill actually scored in the 1990 third place playoff against england so did nicola bertie but history books i mean peter shilton did not have his best game no in that match yeah just fontaine Did he have another name?

39:37No, he was just Fontaine. It's the one. Yeah, very good. Why is everyone snobbish about the third, fourth playoff? Because it doesn't matter. But if you're at the Olympics and you get a bronze medal, you're super happy. You go on the podium. I mean, it depends what you were aiming for. If you were aiming for a medal, you're thrilled. If you were aiming for gold, you're gutted. And consequently, you see that in World Cups. Most teams who get to the semifinals were hoping to go on and win it. So the thought of Athens. Well, no, but not every team goes into the tournament thinking they're in with a chance.

40:09Would England and France's players right now like to be going on a holiday and having a rest or heading to Miami to play football? We simply don't know. One other thing, even though it's in Miami, there's a strong chance that the third, fourth playoff won't involve a certain orange skin creature handing out baubles at the end of it. So there's that. So there's that. So there's that. anyway England against France Duncan does that not light your fire a little bit not really no um but I do think they're the one the saving grace of the third fourth playoff is it can go a bit mad you know there's kind of the the pressure on managers to sort of use players they haven't given many minutes to in the tournament um and they you know they can often be a bit high scoring and a bit a bit crazy so let's let's hope for that let's hope for a sort 6-5 thrill-a-thon that overshadows the final.

41:02Okay. Bit of last day of term vibes. Excellent. Tim, you're excited. Tom, you're excited. Duncan, you're excited. But I think that's where we come to the end of today's show. Many, many thanks to you if you followed it live. And thanks equally if you're catching up with it afterwards. We will be doing another live, as mentioned at the top, around Sunday's final, which is, of course, Spain against Argentina. But we have a show on the Saturday straight after the third fourth game so perhaps you'll be joining us for that for now it's many many thanks to Duncan lovely to see you again big dunk and we'll have a chat with you I think after the final hopefully in our live show then excellent thank you Tim and Tom or Tom and Tim Tim and Tom anyway it's been a long day tournament yeah thanks to the production crew and thanks bubble to you.

41:56Do join us again at the weekend for now. From all of us here, it's goodbye.

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