I don't think that this happened because England decided to stop playing football. Yes, they went into defense mode but at the same time, we have seen that Argentina becomes different when it's losing and only 10-15 minutes are left before the end of the match. In this moment, Argentina, especially Messi, plays in a full beast mode and does everything that's possible. Did you notice how he was trying to get the ball in a good position (he gave passes and asked all of his teammates to return ball back) to perform kick like a free kick. I don't remember the exact moment but he did this in the last 15 minutes if I remember well.
England would have had a better result if they had played more bravely. They proactively pulled their squad down, played with very low block and after several minutes, their whole team lost feeling of playing like before. Then they fell into situation of only able to defend that is terrible as the way they played is not like a double-decker bus tactic at all. They did not have enough space and distance between defenders and midfielders, and it put their who defense system under pressure of Argentina.
Result of this too passively tactic is known by all of us, and both Tuchel as well as players have to be responsible for that. It's like England did not have a mentality of champion, I can understand it because their national team did not win any big title since 1966 but remember Netherlands played better in their semi finals or finals.
People also joke about Jude Bellingham provoking Messi and that's the moment where he made mistake. Of course it's a joke but things for England really went very bad. You should never provoke Messi, treat him well, don't make him aggressive or he becomes an ultimate monster.
It's normal when players try to attack their opponents, kind of psychological fight but Jude Bellingham did not know that when he did that, he woke up the beast mode inside Messi.