The Guardian's Barney Ronay argues that while Tuchel will wear the loss, England's exit reflects something older and more systemic. The manager becomes the obvious target, yet this defeat fits a familiar pattern: hype, tournament pressure, and structural collapse that survives every managerial change.
England treats tournament runs as national stress tests. Each exit triggers a postmortem that isolates the manager as the culprit, but this framing lets the FA, the federation's player development strategy, and the team's tactical identity off the hook. The bigger picture: Tuchel gets blame for England exit but this is not only about him because every new high-status appointment is sold as the fix for problems that outlast the fix.
Tuchel may deserve criticism for tactical choices or squad management. But England's real habit is managerial romanticism: hire the stern genius, project authority onto the touchline, and assume psychology and history sort themselves out. They don't. When every exit becomes a referendum on one man, the system avoids harder questions about player development, tactical identity, and why England still turn elite squads into recurring therapy sessions after another semi-final. The problem isn't Tuchel. It's that England keeps hiring rescue fantasies instead of building systems.
Filed to the World desk · Jul 16