On Wednesday night, the entire country saw the World Cup dream come to a screeching halt. The match against Argentina saw a troublesome first half with many fouls, kicks and shoves from Argentinian players.
But of course, the Lions didn’t let that faze them and carried through with their game. With great defending from players like Djed Spencer, amazing goal keeping from Jordan Pickford, the first half went by with stopping Argentina from scoring. And the boys returned from half time break to finally score a goal at 55 minutes from the one and only Anthony Gordon. With this goal, England were ahead in the match and it felt like England would manage to win and finally get to the World Cup Final for the first time since 1966.
But alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Argentina dominated the second half after England scored. England, Pickford, Spence, Bellingham and Kane did all they could to keep the ball to themselves, but Argentina snatched it off and their own Fernandez scored at 85 minutes with Martinez solidifying their win in extra time at 92 minutes.
And for the fans back at hope, we’re all filled with disappointment and grief all over again. In recent years the England’s men team have always managed to get to the quarter-finals in the 2022 World Cup where Harry Kane missed the penalty to take the match to extra time against France, thus eliminating England. While England did manage to get all the way to the Finals in Euros 2024, only to lose 2 to Spain.
The recent loss of England after getting all the way to the semi-finals is thus nothing new to a lot of England fans, but that didn’t mean the hope that it would finally be coming home after 66 years of hurt wasn’t there.
For now though the England players will play against France on Saturday night at 10:00pm to fight for 3rd place for the World Cup of 2026 and they’ll have to retreat to lick their wounds and really figure out what went wrong.
Many people comment and subsequently blame Thomas Tuchel’s substitutions for defence in the match. Regardless of that however, the dream of the World Cup coming home after 60 years still remains.
