Lin Quan Scores Twice, Kills the Match!

During halftime, gloom hung over the English dressing room.

Almost everyone, from the Head Coach to the players, was racking their brains over how to overturn the deficit.

Although they were only one goal behind, that single goal was practically fatal for a team built around defensive counterattacks.

With only three substitutions available, it was extremely difficult to make sweeping adjustments to their personnel and tactics. After all, they had fielded five defenders specifically to bolster their defense.

And those five defenders could provide very limited help in attack. If they wanted to pursue offense, they had to take some of them off and replace them with attacking players.

England actually had quite a few attacking talents on the bench, such as Leicester City striker Vardy and Manchester United winger Rashford.

Bringing them on could effectively boost England's attacking power, but substitutions were limited. If they used all three too early, then if anything unexpected happened later, they would have no substitutions left.

Moreover, Southgate was worried that if they pushed forward in the second half and left their back line exposed, what would happen if their opponents took the chance to score again?

The odds of that happening were quite high. Their first-half defense had relied on packing defensive players into their own half.

Once the players all joined the attack and the number of defenders dropped, their defense would inevitably be greatly weakened.

Unless they could play the kind of extreme possession football Spain National Team did and keep the ball firmly at their feet, they would have to face Spain National Team's frequent and highly dangerous counterattacks.

Southgate hesitated for a long time before finally deciding to observe the situation first.

He would definitely make substitutions, but he did not dare use all three at once.

Instead,