It wasn't as decisive as England would have liked, but the Three Lions clinched a spot in the 2026 FIFA World Cup semifinals with a scrappy 2-1 win over Norway in extra time on Saturday at Miami Stadium. England coach Thomas Tuchel was satisfied with the result why wouldn't he be? He's the first coach to lead England to a World Cup semifinals since 2018, and just fourth all-time. But Tuchel isn't satisfied with the way his team played against Norway, even if he got the result he wanted. "I didnt talk about suffering. No, I never talked about suffering," Tuchel said after the match. "The result is fantastic, were in the last four, but, not a performance." Tuchel made it clear that effort wasn't the issue for his England squad. Rather, it was the team's organization on the pitch. "In every sense. The commitment is there, but it made life very difficult for us in the way we played, how we played, sloppy, a lot of technical mistakes, not fast enough," Tuchel said. "We were lucky today." Star Jude Bellingham seemed a bit taken aback at his coach's comments. "Maybe he doesn't know what it's like to play in those conditions," Bellingham said. "It's not an easy team to play against," he added. "I think we've tried to create a positive environment, and we should continue that going into the final four. I can't speak highly enough of the lads. You're not going to win every game popping the ball and making a thousand passes. Sometimes you have to win dirty." The issues in the past with England have been the perception that the players don't want it bad enough. Tuchel doesn't see that within his team, and not even in the performance against Norway. "It's a pure mentality thing, there was no mentality problem. You could bottle it up and sell it," Tuchel said. "Its the quality of our games. Its nothing to do with mentality, its about quality, we need to play better." When asked about Bellingham specifically, who scored both of England's goals against Norway, Tuchel praised the midfielder's heroics. "Enough said. He does it every single match. World Class," Tuchel said. England now move onto the semifinals to face the winner of Argentina vs. Switzerland on Wednesday at Atlanta Stadium.

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Switzerland's well-earned reward for acting is ejection from game and elimination from World Cup originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.The tears were real. Switzerland striker Breel Embolo no longer was acting by then. He covered his face in horror, aware everything hed dreamed about at the start of the day, at the start of the 2026 World Cup, had been demolished in an instant.First, referee Joao Pedro Silva Pinheiro held a yellow card toward the Kansas City sky; then he showed considerable dexterity by pulling a red card from his pocket and signaling to Embolo he no longer would be involved in Saturday's quarterfinal game against Argentina.Embolos offense: simulation.2026 WORLD CUP HQ:Latest World Cup news|Full World Cup schedule|Buy World Cup ticketsIt was not a universally popular decision. Anything favoring Argentina against an underdog at this point in the 2026 World Cup is going to generate controversy.Pinheiro got it right, though, after hed gotten it wrong.It was no surprise 11 members of this Argentina team eventually were able to produce a 3-1 victory over 10 members of this Switzerland team, even if they needed an extra 30 minutes to get there. The Argentines advanced to the World Cup semifinals and a game Wednesday against England, a nation that surely appreciates great theater.It was a fine piece of acting by Embolo at the time, in the 69th minute, his sudden crash toward the turf tricking Pinheiro into assigning a yellow card to Argentinas Leandro Paredes. Kevin Costner, Cuba Gooding, Wesley Snipes guys whove convincingly portrayed athletes in major motion pictures might have been impressed by Embolos theatrics. The video assistant referees turned out to be the toughest critics.MORE:Soccer world reacts to controversial red card that helped Argentina beat SwitzerlandThe crew in the replay booth noticed there hadnt been any particular reason for Embolo to go airborne; hed not been contacted by Paredes. In the sporting parlance, he had flopped."In my opinion, thats a harmless foul, if it even was a foul," Switzerland head coach Murat Yakin said in his postgame press conference. "I know they will protect their referee, but this rule destroyed our game today, and it was incredibly painful. To be eliminated in that way hurts a lot."There was no reason to award that yellow card. I dont understand it. It was a harmless situation. I dont understand that the decision was made and it was our player sent off the pitch."The play was eligible for VAR review because of the mistaken identity protocol introduced for this World Cup. It rarely has been employed in this tournament, but we did see one in the opening game for the United States against Paraguay, when the referee watched the tape and reassigned a yellow card that had been shown to USMNT defender Tim Ream to opposing midfielder Miguel Almiron. It was relatively early, so Almiron was in no danger of being ejected.Against Argentina, though, Embolo had been carded just before halftime for a harsh tackle, coincidentally against Paredes. So when he inexplicably chose to take flight in the 72nd minute, he was taking an extravagant risk (two yellow cards leads to ejection) for a meager reward. He wasn't anywhere near drawing a penalty. He wasnt in a position that would have generated a dangerous free kick for Switzerland. He was 30 yards up the right sideline and moving away from goal when his moment arrived. And it was more than just the aeronautics; he rolled three times on the ground after landing and groaned as if in agonizing pain.After a VAR review, Embolo is sent off with his second yellow for simulation pic.twitter.com/1ljSIAtVRj FOX Sports (@FOXSports) July 12, 2026All of this happened just 2 minutes after Switzerland had tied the game on winger Dan Ndoye's beautiful strike.The Fox television crew were sympathetic to Embolo, arguing it was too harsh to reverse the yellow given the awareness it would end his night and quite possibly his World Cup. Former USMNT star Landon Donovan advocated for this, and even former Premier League referee Mark Clattenburg, serving as rules analyst, took this position.One must admit there was a sinister sort of poetry in Argentina receiving another favorable ruling there at the home of the Kansas City Chiefs, the team NFL fans claimed for years were the beneficiaries of game official gift-giving.Already in this World Cup, superstar Lionel Messi escaped any punishment whatsoever after scraping his cleats against the right calf of Algeria defender Aissa Mandi during the first half of their group game. It might have been worthy of a red card dismissal; Messi didnt even see yellow.In Argentinas most recent game, Egypt had a goal rescinded because the VAR detected a foul at the very beginning of the build toward that score roughly 100 yards away from goal. Its within the purview of the replay system to punish such offenses, but who had seen such a thing before this week?After review, Egypt is called for a foul and the goal is disallowed. pic.twitter.com/9KJiFgVjMI FOX Sports (@FOXSports) July 7, 2026There are two reasons the Embolo red card made sense, though.The first is the sport needs to do as much as possible to eliminate this sort of behavior. Some will contend thats an American viewpoint, but clearly its not. How do we know? Just remember what they call it: simulation. Please. Wed never use that word. Even hockey calls it embellishment. Wed obviously prefer the simplest label: diving. Those in charge at FIFA conceived the rule because its bad for the game.The second is it would have been worthy of a yellow if Pinheiro had noticed initially what really occurred. Embolo made it look awful. He didnt just go down; if he had, thered have been no yellow for Paredes and thus no reason to review.MORE:Why Switzerland's Breel Embolo was sent off vs. ArgentinaThe World Cup referees were tasked with attempting to remove any sort of fakery from the tournament. There have been myriad occasions when players have gone down after minor collisions with opponents and refs either ignored their pleas for foul calls or admonished them to get off the ground. Embolo ought to have understood this before Switzerlands first game, but certainly after hed been playing in this event for a month.In television, one might get an Emmy for a performance such as Embolos. On television, playing the worlds most popular sport in the biggest sporting event on the planet, it produced a far less desirable award.

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For a few days, this was the best Golden Boot race in living memory. Four legends, separated by two goals, all still alive. Then Saturday in Miami thinned the field in the most dramatic way possible. Erling Haaland is gone. Norway's dream ended in extra time, England winning, 2-1, and the man who had scored in every single match his country played was finally, mercifully for defenders, held quiet. Seven goals, a historic run to the quarterfinals, and now a plane home. The most efficient scorer the sport has produced never got his shootout at the top. Cruel game. His conqueror complicated things too. Jude Bellingham scored twice against Norway including the extra-time winner to reach six goals and pull level with his own teammate, Harry Kane. So England now carries two men on six into a semifinal. Neither is out of it. Both would need a historic runover two games to catch the leaders. Not impossible. Not likely. Because the leaders are who we always suspected they'd be. Lionel Messi has eight after being held in check in the 21 quarterfinals win over Switzerland. Kylian Mbapp also has eight after adding to his account in the 2-0 quarterfinals win over Morocco. The same number they finished on in Qatar four years ago, when Mbapp's hat trick in the final edged Messi by a single goal and left the Argentine without the one trophy his cabinet never held. The Golden Boot is the lone individual honor missing from the greatest rsum the game has ever seen. Four years later, here it is again, dangling in front of Messi, with the same Frenchman standing in the way. The parallels this week bordered on absurd. Both men missed a knockout penalty. Both responded by scoring anyway. Messi's spot-kick was saved against Egypt in the round of 16 clash before he dragged Argentina back from 2-0 down with an 83rd-minute equalizer. Mbapp went the same direction from the spot against Morocco, watched Yassine Bounou save it, then curled in his eighth of the tournament twenty minutes later. Great players don't dodge failure. They just refuse to let it be the headline. Here's the wrinkle that decides everything: Mbapp is technically ahead. FIFA breaks tournament ties on assists, and Mbapp has three to Messi's two. If both finish level on goals, the boot goes to France on a tiebreaker most fans have never heard of. Imagine explaining that to Just Fontaine, who scored 13 in six games in the 1958 World Cup for France with a single pair of boots and no penalties, and still holds the record no one will touch. The stakes are almost as high as the trophy itself. Messi, at 39, is the all-time World Cup scoring leader with 21 goals. Mbapp sits on 20, one behind, at 27 years old. Every goal either player scores now moves two leaderboards at once the Golden Boot and the record book. There is no such thing as a meaningless finish for these two anymore. And the fixtures are lining up for a reunion nobody would dare script. France plays Spain in the semifinal Tuesday. If both win, Messi and Mbapp meet in the final in New York on July 19 the ghost of Lusail in Qatar resurrected, four years and one continent later, with a Golden Boot and a World Cup on the same table. Haaland gave us the fireworks. Bellingham and Kane still lurk. But this was always going to come down to the two men who turned the 2022 final into a duel and never really stopped. Messi chasing the one award he's yet to capture. Mbapp right there with him. Fontaine's record is safe. Everything else is up for grabs. And we get to watch the same two titans settle it one more time.