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England finally broke the shackles and demonstrated the work that Gareth Southgate had been doing with the lads over the past year and a half. A thrilling match, which England won courtesy of a brace from their captain Harry Kane means that the Three Lions have now started off the tournament in a positive note as such.
However, Tunisia were no pushovers either, as the African team made Southgate’s men dig deeper in order to snatch a victory in the injury time. Nabil Maaloul drilled his team to perfection from a defensive point of view, but loss of concentration during the final corner kick of the match resulted in Tunisia giving up the possibility of a drawn game altogether.
What exactly went wrong for this African nation? Have a read, yourself.
#1 Lack of energy and pressing in the midfield
Under Southgate’s tutelage, England focuses on playing a possession-based, positive brand of football. However, as they have to accommodate three central midfielders, Gareth often goes in with Jesse Lingard and Dele Alli in central midfield.
This leaves England with only Jordon Henderson as the defensive midfielder, and this drawback could be exploited by inducing more energy and pressing at the centre of the park.
Tunisia often refrained from winning the ball back by pressurizing the likes of Henderson and Harry Maguire deep in the midfield area. England’s centre-back players are very inexperienced and could be outclassed with some incessant pressing and high display of energy.
Moreover, Tunisia’s tendency to rely on misplaced passes to regain possession allowed England to maintain better possession of the ball as almost all the English players are good, accurate and incisive with the ball at their feet.
Due to the lack of a creative central midfielder, Lingard and Alli push ahead on the field to create more goal-scoring opportunities. In such a scenario, Henderson should have been targeted on the counter-attack by Tunisia. This lack of intent in the midfield means that Tunisia ended up sacrificing a lot of possession of the ball.
#2 Failure to exploit the wide areas
On paper, England play with three central defenders, with two wingbacks providing defensive cover from the wide areas. However, one of the main reasons why Kieran Trippier and Ashley Young play as the wingbacks is their ability to regularly deliver crosses and potent deliveries into the box.
Even Maguire romped ahead to add up as an extra man in attack constantly, which left a whole amount of space on the left-hand side.
Playing as the right-sided centre-back, Kyle Walker to has a tendency to shift a bit wider to send in diagonal long-range balls inside the opposition’s box. Young and Trippier were often stationed in the opposition half, to look for crosses or lobbed balls into the box.
Moreover, Young is often culpable during defensive positioning, and this could have been exploited to a huge extent by Tunisia. Nabil’s men should have stretched the play to send in some crosses, and that could have created some dire frantic inside England’s box.
On the few occasions when Tunisia did attack through the wings, they often found half-spaces and openings on the flank. This shows that they could have further enhanced their chances by passing the ball out wide and then running out ahead in order to send some testing deliveries into the box.
Meanwhile, look how England dominated their right flank!
#1 Deciding to sit back after the equalizer:
Kyle Walker surrendered England’s lead after a somewhat unnecessary foul inside the box. Ferjani Sassi calmly slotted the ball into the net, and then England had to wait for a long period of time before Kane scored the winning header in the 91st minute. Accordingly, in the time between Tunisia’s first goal, and England’s second one, the African team had a lot of chances to enhance their lead.
The second-half brought in a sense of desperation to the England camp and Southgate deployed a very high defensive line in the last forty-five minutes. Maguire was usually in the other half, looking for passes and breaking the midfield lines with some shrewd incision with the possession of the ball. Tunisia surprisingly decided to absorb the pressure and see out the game rather than looking to go for the kill by notching a probable second goal.
They had enough opportunities with the ball to launch a slick counter-attack, but rather decided to safely pass it sideways. This pragmatic approach means that Tunisia had to concentrate collectively until the dying embers of the game to secure a draw.
One could not totally blame them, as a draw would have been as meaningful as a victory against a strong English lineup. However, this lack of ruthless winning mentality could result in the team’s downfall, as they had a lot of time and chances to take the game by the scruff of the neck, which they eventually did not.
Harry Kane scored the header in the final few minutes through a corner-kick, but, one must only wonder whether Tunisia could have sealed the game before rather than waiting for a draw.
