A trail of tears has led Thomas Tuchel and his players here to the gateway of America’s South where Argentina and Lionel Messi bar their path.
England are in the World Cup semi-finals for only the third time in their history on foreign soil and they have only pain, regret and recrimination for precedent.
This is the game of their lives and of ours, too. It is the biggest game England have played for 60 years. It is a gateway to a changed mentality, a gateway to redemption, to a restoration of pride, a gateway to glory.
But England have flown here to Georgia with much on their mind. They will face the failures of their forebears on Wednesday as well as Argentina.
The image of Paul Gascoigne crying in the Stadio delle Alpi in Turin when England lost on penalties to West Germany in the last four at Italia 90 has become one of the most enduring symbols of our game, a picture that captures England’s decades of crushed dreams and shattered hopes.
In 2018, when England took the lead in their World Cup semi-final against Croatia in Moscow and then fell to a 2-1 defeat, it was Marcus Rashford, a 20-year-old with everything ahead of him, who was inconsolable. After the optimism that that run to the last four engendered, the loss left only disappointment, anti-climax and a feeling of opportunity missed.
England v Argentina is more than just a game for both nations and this semi-final is no different
Diego Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ goal in 1986 has been etched into both nations’ history
Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham and the rest have the chance to break that cycle when they line up against Lionel Scaloni’s side under the roof of the Mercedes-Benz Stadium here.
But they will be up against not just Messi, Julian Alvarez and Emiliano Martinez. They will be up against their nation’s own battered psyche.
This is about vengeance, too. England have never truly exacted revenge over Argentina for Diego Maradona’s Hand of God goal at the Azteca in Mexico City in the 1986 World Cup quarter-finals. It has been a blot on our football history, an injustice excused by the miracle goal that followed it.
The biggest games against Argentina are twinned in our minds with torment and controversy. David Beckham’s red card against them in the second round of the 1998 World Cup in Saint-Etienne was the prelude to a penalty shoot-out defeat and a summer of vilification for the former Manchester United star.
Even the 1966 quarter-final at Wembley when Argentina’s captain Antonio Rattin was sent off felt like a trauma. England won but the game was an ordeal. Sir Alf Ramsey was so appalled by their brutality that he called Argentina’s players ‘animals’.
England did beat them at the 2002 World Cup in Sapporo but it was a group game. It did not carry the same weight.
If England win on Wednesday, though, if an England victory sends Messi into international retirement, if defeat to Bellingham and the rest is the last experience of the World Cup for the world’s greatest player and Argentina’s all-time football hero, then that vengeance will be sweet indeed.
Because of all that history, because of the enmity between the two nations that stems from the Falklands War of 1982 and Argentina’s own feelings of injustice that still manifest themselves in the songs their players sing about ‘Las Malvinas’ after matches, this is now England’s biggest rivalry in international men’s football.
‘I was born in Argentina, land of Diego and Lionel,’ the Muchachos song goes, ‘of the kids from Malvinas, which I will never forget.’
As the fans leap in their post-match celebrations, they chant ‘anyone who doesn’t jump is an Englishman.’ There is an undercurrent of visceral unpleasantness in the rivalry that supersedes any other for England now.
Failing in games like this, failing heroically, failing because of a red card, failing because of an inability to seize the day, failing because of a saved penalty, have all become part of England’s collective make-up. At World Cups, these are the games we lose. These are the games we cannot get past.
At some level deep within, we think Argentina will win on Wednesday afternoon.
England must show they can beat one of the world’s great footballing nations in a World Cup
Michael Owen pictured scoring a stunning goal against Argentina at the 1998 World Cup
Call it muscle-memory if you want. Call it the Messi factor. Or just call it bitter experience. England have never beaten a top international team in a World Cup knock-out game outside England. It has become ingrained in us that we are inferior to the best sides.
This time, it can be different. This time, it has to be different.
This is why the FA took the gamble of appointing Tuchel. They wanted to break the cycle of inferiority. They wanted to shed all that emotional baggage. They wanted a world-class manager in his prime, an intensely intelligent, focussed individual who cared nothing for history.
They wanted a farewell to promise and a hello to trophies. They wanted a man who could move the team beyond all that Gareth Southgate had achieved and get England over the line.
Well, now England can see the line. Now Argentina and Messi stand in their way and it is time for Tuchel to laugh in the face of all England’s previous disappointments.
A fire is burning in the England head coach. You can see it raging. It was there in the aftermath of his team’s gutsy win over Norway in Miami on Saturday when he praised his players’ spirit but railed against the technical deficiencies in their performance, which nearly cost them the quarter-final.
That’s the kind of thing the FA signed him for. That’s the kind of thing that can help England get past Argentina on Wednesday. That kind of hunger, that kind of abrasiveness, that lack of compromise. Tuchel is challenging players in a way many of them have never been challenged before and the best of them, Bellingham and Kane, are responding with the tournament of their lives.
That is the kind of implacable attitude England will need to get past Argentina. Tuchel knows they will have to be better than they were against Norway to have any chance of making the final so what has he got to lose in urging them to improve?
There is an aura around Lionel Messi (left) but England are battling their own psyche, too
England can turn to two of this tournament’s best in Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane (right)
He has failed to get the best out of them at this tournament in close to a month on the road. Time is running out to find the formula.
Wednesday’s semi-final will be tough and it will be unforgiving.
Messi might walk around with a halo over his head but most of the rest of his team-mates play as if they were sporting devil’s horns. They are nasty and niggly, they are hard and unrelenting and unyielding and they are masters of gamesmanship.
Remember the boorish antics of Martinez after the World Cup Final in Qatar when he turned his Golden Glove trophy into a lewd prop at the presentation ceremony? Remember Argentina’s taunting of Holland after they beat them in a quarter-final penalty shoot-out at the 2022 World Cup? Remember Enzo Fernandez leading Argentina players in a racist chant about France players after they won the Copa America in 2024?
This is why the FA took the gamble of appointing Thomas Tuchel. They wanted to break the cycle of inferiority. They wanted to shed all that emotional baggage. They wanted a world-class manager in his prime, an intensely intelligent, focussed individual who cared nothing for history.
There are also widespread concerns about the number of critical decisions that appear to be going Argentina’s way amid suggestions that Fifa and their sponsors are desperate to keep Messi in the competition for as long as possible to maximise revenue and viewing figures. In previous tournaments, that might have been dismissed as an empty conspiracy theory. But not this time.
Argentina’s favourable treatment started when Messi avoided a red card for appearing to rake his studs down the back of the calf of Algerian defender Aïssa Mandi in an Argentina group game.
In their Round of 16 game against Egypt, a brilliant Egypt team goal was ruled out for an infraction that had happened long before the move was finished off.
Egypt made public accusations that the game was rigged. There were more allegations of bias after Argentina survived a scare against Switzerland in their quarter-final in Kansas City. Argentina rolled on, all the way to Atlanta.
So now they collide, these two football enemies.
This is not a great Argentina team. They have shown over and over again at this World Cup that they are beatable and that they have weaknesses in defence, particularly at full-back, that can be exploited and that have been exploited.
Thomas Tuchel (right) was recruited by the FA to inspire England in moments such as this one
They need to be respected because they know how to win the tournament and they never know when they are beaten, both of which are invaluable assets.
But England have Bellingham and Kane and they have, in Tuchel, a coach who has been recruited to make the difference specifically for occasions like this. England will lean on him hard on Wednesday.
Whatever happens, Argentina will not go quietly. If they are behind, it will get ugly. If they are winning, it will get ugly, too. They will try to target Bellingham, just as they once targeted Beckham nearly 30 years ago. England must keep their discipline and keep their eyes on the prize.
In Piedmont Park, not far from where they are staying in Atlanta, there is a sculpture called The Last Meter, which is a depiction of the close finish of the Men’s 5,000m race at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. One of the runners in falling as Lasse Viren breasts the tape. England are in the last meter, too. This time, they must not fall.
