England manager Thomas Tuchel is pushing back on any suggestion that there is a rift between himself and star Jude Bellingham ahead of Wednesday’s World Cup semifinal against Argentina.
The pair’s relationship has been under the microscope following Tuchel’s critical comments about England’s performance in their win over Norway on Saturday, to which Bellingham seemed to take exception to during post-match interviews.
Tuchel also said last summer that his mother found some of Bellingham’s antics on the field “repulsive.”
But posed with the question of where the two’s relationship stood on Tuesday, the England manager told talkSPORT that he spoke to his team to clear the air the day after the quarterfinal win over Norway and said there was no issue between him and Bellingham.
“It’s just what it is, but we’re as close as ever, and close more than ever before,” Tuchel said. ”You can see that on the field. The energy and mentality in camp is excellent in the last [few] days, and we are ready to go for it tomorrow.”
The headlines stemmed from Tuchel criticizing the English performance, calling it “sloppy, [a] lot of technical mistakes, not fast enough” during a post-match interview with Fox Sports.
Bellingham, who scored both of England’s goals in the victory, shot back after hearing the criticism relayed to him by a reporter, saying “whatever.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know what it’s like to play in those kind of conditions against Erling Haaland, [Martin] Ødegaard … That’s not an easy team to play against,” Bellingham said.
Tuchel expressed Tuesday that it was the media that was blowing the situation out of proportion and blamed the question itself for Bellingham’s answer.
“What do you expect of a player that just played 120 minutes and gave literally everything if you shorten the comment of his coach, if you don’t tell him that ‘he was world class,’ if you don’t tell him that ‘he has world class actions,’” he said. “If you just cut all this and tell him, ‘Oh, your coach said you were sloppy’ what do you expect? Yeah, of course, you get the comment that you get and then you try to blow it up and people try to create misunderstandings and cracks where no cracks are.
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“We come from the same place. We come from being competitive and I am a competitive coach. I push this team to the limit and that was my assessment.
“I think the question was unfair in this moment towards Jude because he cut all the compliments out of my assessment and just asked about the critical points, so I can understand.
“What do you expect of a player that just gave everything and stands there in front of a microphone in a flash interview?”
And the notion that Bellingham was taking a shot at Tuchel’s own career with his comment didn’t seem to bother the England manager.
Tuchel admitted that he had a “mediocre career at best” as a player, but is confident it doesn’t impact his coaching ability.
“I don’t think that you have to play [to be a coach]. A funny quote, you don’t have to be a horse to be a good jockey,” Tuchel said.
England star Harry Kane also pushed back on any drama that was being indicated in the press in an interview with the BBC.
