England escaped with a 2-1 victory over Norway in the FIFA World Cup, but there appears to be a disagreement between Three Lions head coach Thomas Tuchel and his squad over the performance.
While it is true that England was not great, it was very tough. However, Tuchel was critical of certain aspects of his team’s game, but then also took exception when questioned about the team’s mentality. It was a wild exchange for those of you who are not geoblocked:
Sports Illustrated used an excerpt of the interview in lieu of a full transcription:
The discussion with ITV Sport’s Gabriel Clarke got off to a terrible start. Tuchel took exception to the suggestion that he had discussed “suffering” in the buildup to the knockout tie. “I didn’t talk about suffering. I never did,” Tuchel fumed before turning his attention to why England did suffer. “We made life very, very difficult for ourselves today. The result is fantastic. We are in the last four. It’s amazing but not happy with the performance—in every sense.
“The commitment is there but we made life difficult for us in the way we played and how we played—sloppy, a lot of technical mistakes, not fast enough, not repetitive enough.
“It’s not the mentality,” he shot back. “This is pure mentality. It’s not about mentality. You can bottle it up and sell it. It’s about the quality—we need to play better.”
England star Jude Bellingham did not seem too thrilled with Tuchel’s assessment of England’s performance against Norway and offered a response to his coach.
“Yeah well, whatever,” Bellingham said (as captured by Sports Illustrated). “Whatever. It’s difficult out there, it’s a tough shift. All the players have put in a tough shift. My thoughts and appreciation goes to the players out there who put in a great shift.”
Bellingham went even further later.
“Maybe he doesn’t know what it’s like to play against Erling Haaland, Ødegaard, Nusa, and Sørloth under those conditions. That’s not an easy team to face. You don’t win every game by keeping the ball moving and playing a thousand passes. Sometimes you have to win dirty – and that’s what we managed to do again tonight,” Bellingham said (as captured by Sky Germany journalist Kerry Hau).
Tuchel might not have meant anything serious with his critique, but he does have a history of tension with players. For England fans, you had better hope that this is just water under the bridge after a heated, rugged victory.
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