England v Argentina: This ultimate World Cup grudge match could get a little Messi

July 15, 2026 — 6:00am

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If you were to buy a bottle of mentality, whose would you pay more for: England’s or Argentina’s?

England manager Thomas Tuchel doesn’t need either. He probably wouldn’t even shop in the “mentality” section at the servo; he’d be over at the “performance” fridge, selecting a bottle of each element he felt was missing from his team’s 2-1 quarter-final World Cup win over Norway.

“Sloppy,” Tuchel said pitchside after Jude Bellingham scored his second to put an end to the chaotic, controversial encounter in extra time. “A lot of technical mistakes. Not fast enough. Not repetitive enough. We were lucky.”

If it wasn’t clear that Tuchel holds his squad’s strength of character in extremely high regard, it became so through his amusingly irate response to ITV’s follow-up question about whether the close call in Miami’s heat was “a mentality thing”.

“Mentality?” Tuchel retorted in disbelief. “This is pure mentality. How can you talk about mentality now? There’s no mentality problem. This is pure mentality. You can bottle it up and sell it.”

He knows – he has a case of the stuff in his dressing room. And while, intellectually, he wants his players to be faster, more clinical, make fewer mistakes and leave less to luck, England’s fourth World Cup semi-final appearance carries a strong struggle-of-mindsets flavour (not just the struggle between the mindsets of Tuchel and Bellingham).

Based on the campaigns of both England and Argentina, Thursday morning’s (AEST) meeting could look a bit messy. Messi, certainly, given the unspoken assumption this is Lionel’s last World Cup. It could also, like four years ago, become Messi’s World Cup. Or, if Argentina lose, Messi’s final World Cup game.

But also messy in that the football will be flawed. England have yet to produce a 90-minute performance, instead risen to the occasion when required. Slogging it out against the DR Congo, scoring two goals in two minutes (Bellingham and Bellingham) against Mexico and then defending to the death with 10 men at the Azteca, before getting........

© The Age