World Cup reader Q&A: Nick Ames answers your questions now - live

After 102 games we know that 2026 World Cup final will be between Spain and Argentina in New Jersey on Sunday. Our football correspondent Nick Ames has been in the US and Mexico all tournament and is now live answering your questions – post yours now

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uncle_Rico asks: Why did Bellingham and Kane have so little influence over the game last night? All the talk had been about how they were carrying England forward with the worry being what would happen in a game where they couldn’t do that.

Nick says:

I thought Bellingham could run amok yesterday. It felt as if he’d have a lot of fun running off, and behind, a labouring Argentina midfield. Back to football-watching school for me! It’s a great point. I watched the game back yesterday on my flight to New York and could not believe how minimal England’s goal threat had been. It was even worse on second viewing. Can you think of another scoring chance they created? The short answer here is that Bellingham and Kane need people around who can get the ball to them and it just did not happen. I think a lot of that comes down to the way England started the game. Argentina were very happy to let that opening period go by without anything happening and England played along.

It’s quite often a mistake to pick people’s words apart but I did think Anthony Barry was interesting at half-time when he said “we wanted to show our players that there was no inferiority complex”. Why would they have thought there was? I guess the answer has something to do with Argentina’s title-winning pedigree and a certain Lionel Messi. But it suggests there were concerns about at least some kind of external pressure filtering through. Coaches can never control exactly how much players see and hear from outside; the expectation is always gigantic. It’s not quantifiable, in fact it’s totally nebulous, but you’d have to think it has some sort of effect.

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