00:00Right, hello everybody, welcome to the ACFC NYC HQ, it's about 37 degrees out there and I have to turn
00:06the aircon off to record, just in case you're wondering what all this is.
00:11But what is, I ask you, the vibe back home right now? Are we all really pleased at the victory
00:16and the manner of it, or are we all really annoyed at the victory and the manner of it?
00:22Because regardless, England did deserve to win that game, the reason it just took them so long to look like
00:28they were going to, is because Congo sprung about as big a tactical surprise as it is possible to, and
00:35then played so well within that, that England had a lot of figuring out to do.
00:39And so, what we're going to look at today is how Thomas Tuchel keeps figuring these things out mid-game,
00:47because I know it hasn't been a lot of fun to watch, but that is now the third game out
00:51of four that England have gone on to win in the second half, and that is not a coincidence.
01:01Alright, so, and to my eternal shame, I actually tweeted this before the match started, because Congo had 25%
01:08possession against Portugal and like 30-something against Colombia, England expected to face yet another suffocating low block.
01:16This is the 5-3-2 that they had against Portugal, and it made sense for them to use the
01:22same thing here.
01:22So then, England, partly as a result of that setup, but also partly because of injury, went with two sort
01:29of more up-and-down fullbacks.
01:31That way, you can get one of your eights up here, your six can sit, and then these two sort
01:35of come in field to help you play, while obviously getting up as well, to give you numerical advantages further
01:41up the pitch.
01:42It gives you this sort of structure, rather than putting, like, say, Esri Kwanza or Jarrell Kwanza there, who will
01:47tuck in instead, and then they'll move around like that.
01:50Basically, this was England's best plan for playing against what they thought they were going to play against, matching up
01:57a 5-3-2 exactly.
02:00However, and you watched the game, so you will know this, when England turned up, DR Congo had actually decided
02:06to just go for it, and that gave them both a lot of problems and also a massive fright.
02:13And even before the goal, it was pretty clear the England setup was going to be totally misaligned with the
02:18reality, like, pressing high would not have been a big part of their game plan, so when they invited them
02:23up the field to do so, like this, there was really only Kane and Bellingham prepared to do that.
02:29Because obviously when England don't have the ball, they tend to be in this shape, and none of these four
02:33players, sorry pal, had specific instructions for who to press onto.
02:38So it was left to Kane and left to Bellingham to pretty much do that on their own, and it
02:42made it so easy for DR Congo to just pass around them.
02:46So that meant every time England ventured up the field, there was this, like, 2v4 disadvantage, and it just got
02:51played through and around like it wasn't even there.
02:54And whatever your pressing structure is, no matter how many players you're leaving back, if that initial thing gets skipped,
03:00you can be in quite a bit of trouble.
03:02Like, Bellingham has their number six here quite well marked, but when he jumps to the centre-back, because no
03:07one else is going to do that, he's free to just move out behind him.
03:11And Anderson can't then push up because he's pinned, and Rice is on the other side of the pitch.
03:16They clearly did not have a plan for what to do here.
03:18And stuff like that, as small as it seems, is a really good example of why coaching and individual adaptations
03:24from game to game can be so important in determining the outcome of a result.
03:29They clearly matter as much as just how good your team is.
03:33And you can see that exactly in their goal.
03:35Like, first off, this is approaching midway in your own half, with your defence 10, maybe 12 yards off the
03:41edge of your own box, and you have no pressure on the ball.
03:46That is about as rudimentary a mistake as it is possible to make, and it all comes from the fact
03:51that at no point are England expecting to be in that sort of situation.
03:55And the reason teams like to have one, two, three, four, five players in the attacking line is because if
04:01the opposition are not switched on to that, if they're not prepared to work hard against it, or they just
04:06don't have a plan for it,
04:07you can find yourself with a numerical advantage in some of the game's most opportune moments.
04:13And shall we just do some very basic counting here, right?
04:18O'Reilly, he's got to keep an eye on Mbuku, Wan-Bissaka has inverted onto Gay, Wisser obviously occupies Konza,
04:25and that's Siddiqui.
04:26He was not playing left-back, he was playing left-sided central midfield, and he has come both up and
04:32over to occupy Jed Spence.
04:35So naturally, he then has to go with him when he makes the run, leaving his actual responsibility, the goal
04:41scorer, totally free out here.
04:44And I have already seen Jed Spence get a little bit of a kicking for that goal, but like, no
04:49matter how many times you watch it back,
04:51there isn't a decision he can make in that situation other than the one he does.
04:55He has to go with that run.
04:56Like, he can't just be stood all the way out here on the man he's supposed to be marking, allowing
05:01this run into the gap.
05:03But at the same time, this isn't Nani Madweke's man, so it's not even that the problem is a lack
05:09of tracking back.
05:09And then you look around and you've got Elliot Anderson in the six, but as the six, he can't just
05:14be getting dragged into the back line every time someone breaks from midfield.
05:18So technically, when you actually line it up in your head, that should be Jude Bellingham's problem, but he is
05:24arguably the furthest away out of anyone in this situation.
05:28And the reason I'm highlighting all four of these players here is because if you want to, you could lay
05:33the blame for this goal with any of them.
05:35Like, Spence could read the situation better because that's technically his man who scores.
05:40Or Madweke could recognise the danger, he could track all the way back with the run.
05:44Or Anderson could drop in to block that running lane off.
05:48Or Bellingham, who technically is responsible for the player, could have gone all the way with him.
05:54You could blame any of them if you want to, but the point is, it's none of their fault.
05:59The very fact that Bellingham is the furthest away of all four shows you that at no point was England
06:04expecting this attacking line of five up against their defence.
06:09And that is just as good a case study as you'll ever see of the implications of getting your setup
06:15wrong for a really big game like this.
06:18England have got much better players than DR Congo, but the setup for one team was exploiting the setup for
06:24another.
06:24And for that first period of the game, it made a massive, massive difference.
06:28But the thing is, for all I would say, Tuchel gets it wrong before the game.
06:32England do then go on to correct pretty much every single problem to get themselves the win.
06:37But what I want to talk about here, and the interesting thing about him as a manager, is that when
06:42he makes these changes that are ultimately winning England, for the most part, these games of football, what he's actually
06:48changing are not actually changes.
06:52That's bad English, but you get what I mean.
06:54And yes, they do fix the press in the second half.
06:57Players come a little bit narrower, they stop getting passed around as easy, but that's not the interesting thing.
07:01What I want to talk about is how they manufactured the two goals.
07:04And England's game plan for this tournament, regardless of who starts in the team, is all about these wide rotations
07:10on both sides of the pitch, combined with Harry Kane dropping away from the centre-forward position.
07:16And then what you do, in theory, is you use the former to then feed the latter.
07:21But when this isn't working and the clock is ticking down, Thomas Tuchel does not change the approach or even
07:27the system.
07:28He just changes the personnel.
07:31And while that might sound incredibly uninspiring to you, the way football works is, if you change the personnel within
07:38these small structures, you do inherently completely change the way they work, and by extension, how the opposition have to
07:46defend against them.
07:47Think of it this way, right, I'll just use the right-hand side as an example.
07:50Spence, Madweke and Bellingham trying to make this triangle work is worlds apart from Eze, Rice and Saka doing it.
07:58And that is pretty much where England go and win this game, because you saw the three of them trying
08:02to make this work in the first half.
08:04And while they're obviously all tremendous players in their own right, it just wasn't clicking.
08:09None of them could do anything individually, and the synergy wasn't really there collectively.
08:14Madweke kept getting into good positions, but just shooting.
08:17Spence was going down the line without feeding the ball back into the space he was making.
08:20And Bellingham is England's best player, but is always so much more suited to being on this side of sort
08:27of the attacking central space than this side.
08:29He finds it harder here.
08:30But you go and you look at the equaliser, right, and all three of them are much better positioned to
08:35make this work.
08:36Like, Eze is goal side of his marker, which is obviously a problem for him.
08:40Saka has the width and is asking questions of his, like, do you want to come all the way out
08:44here with me?
08:45Or are you going to mark the space? And Rice is now totally free and ready to combine with the
08:50two of them.
08:51And if you're sitting there thinking, well, hang on, do they all just not have a better understanding because they
08:57play for the same club?
08:58Like, they're all friends from work, technically. They hang out.
09:02Then, yeah, almost certainly that does give you that sort of better understanding.
09:06And this is how it looks in reality.
09:09Saka holds the width. He draws the play and the opposition towards him.
09:12Eze then makes the run from in to out to pull his marker out of position,
09:17while Rice capitalises on that space to make the run from outside to in.
09:23So just two passes.
09:24And that triangle that you see at the very start of the move has now rotated around.
09:28It's still a triangle.
09:30Just the three of them have swapped positions and swapped responsibilities, and that has got them in.
09:35That's what England are trying to do all the time.
09:37And from there, Saka then feeds Eze, who feeds Rice.
09:40And while it's brilliant from Gordon to then get the ball back to Kane,
09:44it's this rotation out on its side that opens up the opportunity.
09:48And then, of course, the winning goal.
09:51Now, because you've swapped sides, you've got Bellingham in that inside left channel where he's better,
09:55and Anthony Gordon now hugging the touchline to create this separation.
09:59And you can see Wan-Bissaka points at the run to say,
10:03I can't leave my guy.
10:05Who is picking him up?
10:07And the answer, just like it was for the goal that England conceived in the first half,
10:11is we don't know.
10:14Because things are now different in England's case,
10:17because they made the required changes mid-game,
10:19and for DR Congo, because they sprung a surprise right at the start,
10:23nobody's quite sure who's supposed to be going where.
10:26And England capitalise on that indecision.
10:29Again, though, it's not this directly.
10:30It's a brilliant finish.
10:32But this is what opens up the defence for the chance in the first place.
10:36And it is in moments like that that you can see why, for better or worse,
10:41Thomas Tuchel decided not to bring players
10:43who give you the opportunity to play a different system,
10:47but instead to bring players who give you the opportunity
10:50to play this system differently.
10:52And obviously the reason for that is because this one system
10:56is all built around one player.
10:59Just fortunately for England, that one player happens to probably be
11:02the best out-and-out pure centre-forward in world football.
11:06And you give him this cross, and you'll get you an equaliser,
11:09and you give him this pass, and you'll get you through to the next round.
11:13Like Thomas Tuchel's quote after the game was,
11:16the message was the same.
11:17I'm not going to do the accent, don't worry.
11:19The message was the same.
11:20Just keep doing what we're doing.
11:22Keep pounding the rock.
11:23Do what we believe in.
11:24And that is what this England side that finished the game,
11:28as opposed to the one that started it, actually represents.
11:31Like, Gordon and Saka are not there to do radically different things
11:35to Rashford and Madweke.
11:36They're there to do the same things their way.
11:39And like, putting Declan Rice at right back
11:42does not change England's system,
11:44but he is a very different right back to Jed Spence.
11:48Jude Bellingham plays different in this position
11:50as he does in this position.
11:52The whole structure stays the same.
11:53The individuals within it interpret it differently.
11:57And thus far, thus far,
11:59it has just about been working.
12:03And if this whole concept of just play the same system
12:06but change the players around,
12:08because they might do slightly different things,
12:09sounds like a really weirdly simple approach,
12:13then, buddy, welcome to international football, right?
12:17Nobody ever won a tournament by overcomplicating things.
12:21Your best bet is always to have a clear idea,
12:24really drill it into a group of players,
12:26and then make changes within that to get you through games.
12:29By and large, just hope the quality of your team
12:33is what's going to win you things.
12:34And I did have a whole little extra bit I was going to do,
12:37but I genuinely, in this seat,
12:39I don't think you can see how sweaty I am, right?
12:41I am genuinely, I think I'm going to pass out.
12:44I've had an alert from a heart monitor, right?
12:45So I'm going to stop recording.
12:47I'll be fine, honestly, don't worry about it.
12:48I'm going to stop recording right there.
12:50Please do subscribe to the Adam Cleary football channel.
12:52You can get me across all the socials,
12:54at AdamClearyCLELY.
12:55England now have, ooh, Belgium have just scored.
12:58England now have Mexico in the Azteca.
13:02And I would argue that's maybe the worst game
13:05you can have coming up in all of world football.
13:09Not for a billion dollars could you convince me
13:12to play against them in that.
13:15So be interesting to see what happens.
13:17I'm going to shower now.
13:19Much love to you all.
13:21Give my family your best.
13:22And I'll see you soon.
13:24Woo-hoo! Bye!
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