England began their World Cup campaign with a strong win over long-time rivals Croatia on Wednesday night, with much of the praise directed towards the manager.
Thomas Tuchel has faced criticism for several bold decisions over the summer, including leaving high-profile players such as Harry Maguire, Cole Palmer, and Trent Alexander-Arnold out of the squad.
However, the German coach—taking charge of his first tournament as England boss—guided the Three Lions to an ideal start in Group L ahead of matches against Ghana and Panama, despite what was described as a “huge heist” at the England camp earlier in the competition.
England led twice in the first half through Harry Kane, but Croatia responded on both occasions with excellent goals to level the score. After the break, Tuchel’s side raised their intensity significantly, and Zlatko Dalić’s team were unable to cope.
The England captain praised Tuchel’s half-time intervention, which helped set the tone for a dominant second half. Marcus Rashford later sealed the win.
Speaking after the match, Kane said: “I thought it was a game of two halves. First half, we were OK. Really disappointed to concede in the way we did, I thought we dropped off.
Credit to the manager, he gave us a speech at half-time and said if we lose, we lose in our way and I think we saw that in the way we came out in the second half.
We went full gas and they couldn’t live with it. Credit to everyone for the first game of the tournament.
Without the ball, we went a bit more aggressive. It was difficult. They have players like Luka Modric dropping in and you’re trying to figure out who to pick up.
The intensity we want, it’s our biggest strength and we’ll have to use that more.
The way we controlled the game once we went ahead, we never really looked like we were in danger and then scored on the counter-attack. We had a spell where we could have scored three or four.”
Jude Bellingham also highlighted the impact of the manager’s halftime message, noting how it helped England restart strongly just after the break.
He said: “It wasn’t one of those where it was a big drama or standing up and shouting; it was what the team needed.
We have a mature group with great leaders in there; everyone knew the level we had to get to. The start of the second half gave us a great platform.”
While the idea of telling a team to “lose in their own way” may seem unusual at a World Cup, it appeared to pay off as England delivered a controlled and dominant performance after the interval. They now look well placed to top Group L after overcoming what was likely their toughest group-stage challenge.
When asked about his half-time message, Tuchel added: “Even if we lose, it will not change my perception of the last 17 days but let’s do it our way.
We were too focused on protecting the result. We were a back seven and we didn’t defend. If the result doesn’t go our way, we want to play our way. I tried to encourage them to go for it.”
