{"id":551492,"date":"2026-06-24T08:41:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T08:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/551492\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T08:41:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T08:41:21","slug":"england-face-an-unexpected-world-cup-consequence-after-dull-draw-with-ghana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/551492\/","title":{"rendered":"England face an unexpected World Cup consequence after dull draw with Ghana"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The surge isn\u2019t sustained, but it means another more dour trend is continued. For the fourth tournament in a row, England<\/a> draw their second game.<\/p>\n

Momentum is stalled, expectation drops back again. They weren’t looking like champions in this one. Thomas Tuchel<\/a> hasn\u2019t changed everything yet. Far from it. Nothing he did seemed to change the game here. Ghana<\/a> were excellent value for a 0-0 draw, with a supremely disciplined defensive performance. And while Tuchel raged, Carlos Queiroz<\/a> was punching the air with his delighted players. They celebrated this like a win, and it still could have been that.<\/p>\n

\"EnglandEngland failed to beat Ghana in Boston (Reuters)<\/p>\n

Prince Adu probably should have had a penalty in the 82nd minute, when Ezri Konsa desperately cut him down but the referee just waved play on. There followed England\u2019s best chance, as substitute Nico O\u2019Reilly smashed the crossbar with a header and then Harry Kane \u2013 of all players \u2013 drove the ball well over the bar from just yards out.<\/p>\n

That should have been it, the winner and his third of the tournament. Instead, that was pretty much it from England, outside one Marc Guehi header batted away. You could call it a desperate goalline clearance but Ghana were only too happy to play that deep.<\/p>\n

Such intensive English attacking also amounted to only about 20 seconds in total, though, compared to the 20 minutes of siege football against Croatia. Here, the subs didn\u2019t work<\/a>. The set-pieces didn\u2019t work. England could barely even work an opening.<\/p>\n

That might not have much material meaning to the group, since England are still in command. A win against Panama keeps them top, but it might have other effects.<\/p>\n

One is physical. Given how the schedule now gets very compact and demanding \u2013 with the potential of at least two games in very difficult conditions \u2013 they could have done with the breather of playing a second string against Panama in New Jersey on Saturday.<\/p>\n

That could yet prove important.<\/p>\n

The second is psychological.<\/p>\n

Maybe England had been too relaxed in the build-up to this. The edge was gone. Now, that momentum is gone.<\/p>\n

\"ThomasThomas Tuchel consoles his players after an under-par performance (Reuters)<\/p>\n

Some of the old debates and doubts will be back, summed up by this second-game trend.<\/p>\n

England didn’t seek to be cautious but they were not adventurous either.<\/a><\/p>\n

Not everything from the Gareth Southgate era has gone away.<\/p>\n

Talk of producing the best football in this World Cup<\/a>, as The Independent did only last week,<\/a> must now go after some of the performances of the last few days.<\/p>\n

England again look more laboured than all of France and Spain, and probably Argentina, Germany and the Netherlands too.<\/p>\n

\"MorganMorgan Rogers of England attempts a header against Jerome Opoku of Ghana (Getty)<\/p>\n

This, as Tuchel has warned, is going to be much more of a battle than the surge against Croatia suggested.<\/p>\n

Some of this does have to be put in context, though.<\/p>\n

This is just what Queiroz reduces games to.<\/p>\n

This was the Portuguese\u2019s eighth clean sheet in 15 World Cup matches. That figure is also somewhat skewed by nine of those games coming with an Iranian side always expected to go out in the first round, and only kept three clean sheets, but also a Portugal in 2014 who managed three out of four.<\/p>\n

A Queiroz team tends to make games a slog.<\/p>\n

And there hasn\u2019t been a slog like this in the tournament. It was the first game without a shot on target in the first half, and we didn\u2019t even see one until the 57th.<\/p>\n

Jerome Opuku and Jonas Adjetey were that good at the centre of the Ghanaian defence.<\/p>\n

\"HarryHarry Kane is left frustrated after missing a glorious chance (AP)<\/p>\n

The greater concern was how England never moved the ball in the way Tuchel would have idealised. There were only two quick interchanges. Everything else was so turgid.<\/p>\n

Kane was no longer looking like a star playmaker, as against Croatia, but was instead at left-back in the 88th minute.<\/p>\n

Even the subs, like Bukayo Saka, ended up showing why they\u2019ve had fitness issues, rather than bringing a new energy.<\/p>\n

It was all such a regression.<\/p>\n

Ghana were always going to limit England to little, but there still could have been more.<\/p>\n

And yes, it could have been worse,<\/a> too.<\/p>\n

Ghana were otherwise waiting for bursts, hoping to eventually prey on England\u2019s frustration. One seemed to come when Adu was played in over the top, forcing Jordan Pickford to rush out of his area.<\/p>\n

\"TuchelTuchel after the match with Panama next in line (Reuters)<\/p>\n

Maybe he was fired by the prospect of finally having something to do, but the goalkeeper was arguably fortunate that Adu led with his foot in trying to nick the ball, committing the foul on the goalkeeper.<\/p>\n

England were then fortunate in a different way moments later. Adu \u2013 once more giving England real difficulties with his pace \u2013 was played in onside and bearing down on goal, with only Ezri Konsa to cover. The centre-half seemed to definitely impede the forward without getting any of the ball, but the referee played on and it wasn\u2019t checked by VAR.<\/p>\n

Tuchel is now going to have a bit of a reassessment of his own over the next three days.<\/p>\n

England are still in a decent place. They\u2019re just no longer in the same mood. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,27125,88901,18,4507,235967,235971,13,14,34476,34477,226491,235963,14680,235970,235969,235965,235966,6,789,19,194883,17,236258,11,12,15,16,20513,194887,20181,194886,5,236256,236257,432,4335,119,177982,7,8,235968,1543,215997],"class_list":["post-551492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-color-image","tag-effort","tag-eire","tag-england","tag-england-national-soccer-team","tag-england-national-team","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-fifa","tag-fifa-world-cup","tag-fifa-world-cup-2026","tag-foxborough-massachusetts","tag-ghana","tag-ghana-national-soccer-team","tag-ghana-national-team","tag-gillette-stadium","tag-group-l","tag-headlines","tag-horizontal","tag-ie","tag-international-team-soccer","tag-ireland","tag-jerome-opoku","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-massachusetts","tag-match-sport","tag-morgan-rogers","tag-national-team","tag-news","tag-number-17","tag-number-18","tag-photography","tag-soccer","tag-sport","tag-stadium","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-united-kingdom-national-team","tag-usa","tag-world-sports-championship"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}