England won Saturday’s World Cup qualifier match against Andorra 1-0, facing boos at the end of both halves for a seemingly unimpressive performance.
This was Thomas Tuchel’s first away game in charge of the national team and the German coach had called for relentlessness and patience as they faced off against their opponents, ranked 173rd in FIFA’s standings.
An absence of goals in the first half, jeers from their own supporters in the stands, and some fans making an early exit seemed to fail to deliver on either.
This was the third time England have failed to score a first-half goal against Andorra in Barcelona, where the minnows kept out Steve McClaren’s side in 2007 and Fabio Capello’s team the following year.Harry Kane scored the winning goal for England early in the second half, but the team lost momentum and failed to add to that total.
“I am not happy with the performance, of course,” German coach Tuchel said on ITV1.
“We started quite well in the first 20-25 minutes, which was the only part where I had the feeling it was only a matter of time, we created a lot of half-chances and from set-pieces, that we will score and keep on going.
“But we lost completely the momentum and couldn’t get it back through the whole of the first half.
“We got a little bit of it back in the first 15 minutes of the second half and then ended up in a period which was by far not good enough – lack of urgency, lack of quality and lack of energy.
“We have to play until the 93rd minute. I didn’t like the lack of urgency in the end,” he said.
“It did not match the occasion at all, it is still a qualifier away from home, I didn’t like it at all.”
