Thomas Tuchel has given a clear response to Jude Bellingham’s comments that followed England’s World Cup quarter-final win over Norway.
Tuchel praised his team’s mentality in a heated post-match interview with ITV’s Gabriel Clarke following the 2-1 extra-time victory in Miami, but called into question their performance and said they had at times been “sloppy”.
Informed of his manager’s comments, Bellingham, scorer of England’s two goals, told ITV: “Yeah, well, whatever,” and defended his team-mates’ display in a tough fixture played in searing heat.
Tuchel has now responded following the renewed questions asked by some about the pair’s relationship as a result of Bellingham’s seemingly spiky response.
“I wonder who blows these things up, eh,” Tuchel said to talkSPORT ahead of Wednesday’s blockbuster semi-final showdown with Argentina. “There is nothing to blow up and if it’s blown up, it’s blown up in the media, of course.
“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 [I said] he was world-class, if you don’t tell him [I said] he has world-class actions.
“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.”
Tuchel continued: “We come from the same place, we come from being competitive. 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 to 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?
“It’s just what it is but we’re as close as ever, and closer than ever before.
“You can see that on the field. The energy and mentality in camp is excellent, in the last days and we are ready to go for it.”
He added: “I spoke to the whole team. We debriefed. I spoke to the whole team after in the dressing room, which was basically the same message.
“And I explained it again the next evening to just move on forward. And then we straight away in the talk put on a new direction, put on a new head, which is semi-final and Argentina.”
