Thomas Tuchel will have prepared for every eventuality before England’s match with Argentina. He will have considered how his team could prosper in attack while remaining solid in defence. What to change if they scored first or if the opening goal went against them and, like so many managers before him, he will have put plenty of thought into how best to deal with Lionel Messi.
For the first hour he was largely peripheral, with the data showing how England were limiting his involvement in dangerous areas. Messi’s only possession in the centre of the penalty area was snuffed out by an Elliot Anderson tackle shortly after Anthony Gordon had scored. The proportion of the distance he covered that was defined by Fifa as sprinting speed (at least 20km/h) was 4.3%, lower than against Switzerland (4.6%) or Egypt (5.4%) in the previous two rounds.
The 39-year-old’s relative lack of shots will have heartened Tuchel. The only effort Messi had was from long range and blocked before it had reached the England box. In only one of his other 19 World Cup matches in which he played the full 90 minutes did he have so few shots in normal time, though he also played 120 with one effort (on target) against the Netherlands in 2014. Against Croatia four years later his only shot came from very close range. He has arguably never been so blunt from this perspective in this competition. So far, so good for England.
Messi’s heat map also burned brightest where it usually does: in the right half-space in front of the opposition’s penalty area. It would be foolish to claim England had him where they wanted him, but at least Argentina’s captain was operating where they would have expected him to be. That can be planned for, which helps.
A heat map for a whole match obscures subtle shifts that occur. Picture the flank between the edge of the penalty box and the touchline, running up to the halfway line. Messi’s only touch in this zone in the opening 45 minutes occurred close to the centre circle, when he passed forward to Giuliano Simeone, who was offside.
But it was from this flank that the talisman took the game away from England. Messi attempted six open-play crosses in this region in the second half. It’s a ridiculously high number for a player who has averaged 2.3 crosses (including set plays) per 90 minutes across league football since 2015. In only two World Cup games has he attempted more, though interestingly both occurred in the preceding two rounds.
One of Messi’s deliveries from wide led to the Nico González header which Jordan Pickford did well to save shortly before the second hydration break. Perhaps it was this moment that firmed up Tuchel’s plan to bring on Ezri Konsa immediately after, the head coach later supplementing him with Dan Burn after switching to a back five. The strategy worked against Mexico so why not here too?
Because Messi is rather better at crossing than Roberto Alvarado and Jesús Gallardo. Those two Mexico players attempted 25 open-play crosses between them at the Azteca for the reward of once chance valued at 0.05xG. Messi, with his cross for Lautaro Martínez’s winner, generated 0.53xG, more than England mustered all night. It was only his second World Cup assist with his right foot and far harder to pull off than the cutback from the byline he provided to Julián Álvarez in the semi-finals in Qatar.
It was a statistically weird game for Messi, full of outliers. It didn’t matter. Wherever the space happens to be, the greatest of all time will be there to torch your best-laid plans.
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