England are through to the FIFA World Cup semifinals after a dramatic 2-1 extra-time win over Norway, but the performance left far more talking points than the result itself. While the Three Lions moved within two victories of ending their 60-year wait for another World Cup title, former USMNT youth international Mike Grella wasn’t convinced there was much to celebrate.
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“The good news is you have two games left, and you can actually win the World Cup since 1966. That’s the positive, you’re competing, you’re finding ways to win,” Mike Grella, former USMNT junior international, started with the positives of England’s performance on CBS Sports Golazo.
However, he then tore into their performance. “The bad news is you’re not very good at football. You’re not good with the ball, you’re not good in transitions, you leave unbelievable spaces in transition, not by my standards, but by English standards, a really poor performance.”
England fell behind to an Andreas Schelderp cross/shot in the 36th minute. The Three Lions looked uninspired in the first half until Jude Bellingham fired them level before the break. In retrospect, the ball was deemed to have hit the SpiderCam in the buildup to England’s leveller. They were even given a reprieve as VAR chalked off a Norway goal due to a dubious foul. Bellingham then bailed them out of jail with a 93rd-minute winner in extra time.
England was incredibly naive in regulation time as they created an xG of just 0.27 compared to Norway’s 0.52. However, they improved massively in extra time thanks to their superior bench strength. This was a common trend in England’s previous matches as well.
Although they rank third in goals per match with 2.2, they have only three goalscorers at the tournament. Bellingham and Harry Kane are carrying the attack with six goals each, and Marcus Rashford is the only other goalscorer with a solitary goal.
Bellingham scored a stunning brace in their 3-2 triumph against Mexico in the round of 32. Kane had to score a world-class goal as part of his brace late in the game to help them win 2-1 against DR Congo in the round of 16.
With no clear-cut chance creation, individual brilliance is bailing Thomas Tuchel’s squad out. However, Grella does see this as a positive. “But the impressive part is how poor you are and able to get away with the win,” he gave them a chance to raise the bar against Argentina.
But Tuchel wasn’t clearly impressed with his team’s game either. Speaking after the match, he first praised his players’ character: “I’m impressed with the effort, team spirit and belief to overcome adversity.” He then turned more critical: He called them “sloppy” and accused his team of “making life very difficult for ourselves”, adding, “But I am also a football coach, and I think we can play better. We had a lot of momentum swings for both teams… not fast enough, not repetitive enough.”
Bellingham, for his part, offered his own read on how England keep finding a way through: “The game is split into loads of different facets, technical, tactical, and the biggest one is psychological, managing adversity.”
The conditions didn’t help matters. Kickoff temperatures hit 33C with 65% humidity, a sharp contrast to the air-conditioned domes and milder weather England had played in earlier in the tournament, despite a hot-weather training camp in Florida ahead of the match.
Norway, appearing in their first-ever World Cup quarterfinal, didn’t fold easily. Substitutes Antonio Nusa and Oscar Bobb both had late chances to force a second period of extra time; Nusa’s shot was blocked by Marc Guéhi, while Bobb lifted a good opportunity over the bar. Haaland himself was withdrawn after the first period of extra time, with England managing to keep the Ballon d’Or-tier striker largely quiet.
Their opponents, Argentina, aren’t in the best shape possible either. Despite Lionel Messi leading the scoring charts with eight goals, the defending champions were stretched to the limit by inferior opponents in the knockouts. Switzerland took them to extra time and lost 3-1 in the quarters as Egypt almost pulled off a heist by leading 2-0 with 11 minutes to go before losing 3-2 in normal time.
The favorite underdog, Cape Verde, stunned Argentina by dragging them to extra time and only conceded a defeat when an own goal in extra time crushed their hopes.
At the newly expanded World Cup, neither team is at their best, but the ability to win ugly does matter, and both these teams will be hoping to turn up and get the result through tactics on the day. The winner will take on either France or Spain in the World Cup final.
