England equalized just before the half-time whistle and went into the break with momentum, but could not finish the job after 90 minutes. Instead, Bellingham was on hand to deliver the goods again, taking extra time to see off Erling Haaland and others.
However, Tuchel was not satisfied after the game, telling ITV: “I didn’t talk about suffering, I never talked about suffering. We made life very difficult for ourselves. The result was great, we’re in the top four, but we’re not satisfied with the performance… in every sense. The commitment is there, but we made life very difficult for ourselves. We made a lot of technical mistakes. We didn’t repeat enough. We were lucky today.”
Clarke went on to ask if it was a mental issue, but Tuchel was not happy about that. The German replied, “Mentality? Mentality? This is pure mentality. How can you ask about mentality? It’s not about mentality.
“There’s nothing wrong with mental health. You can bottle it up and sell it. That’s the quality of our game. It has nothing to do with mental health.”
Tuchel was then asked about Bellingham’s influence on the game, to which the former Chelsea head coach replied: “He was very good (as a sub), Reece James was great, Morgan Rodgers was great today, Ebus (Eze) has grown into his game, Jed has grown into his game.”
“All the credit goes to them. But overall, yes, we were lucky today. It’s about quality. We need to play better. We’ll be better. We have to be better. It’s a celebration now and we’ll take it all in. We have three days and we need everything. We need a better performance.”
Man of the Match Bellingham was asked about this in his own post-match debriefing and the Real Madrid man hit back at his manager. “Yeah, well, whatever, whatever,” Bellingham said. “It’s tough out there. It’s tough. It’s a tough shift. All of our guys put in a very tough shift. My thoughts and thanks go to the local guys for another great shift.”
He added, before adding: “You don’t know how much mental strength and heart we have until we find ourselves in a situation like that and they prove themselves. Game by game. Next is Argentina or Switzerland. We will go into the previous games with the same mentality and see what happens.”
Either way, England have qualified for the semi-finals of the World Cup for the fourth time in their history. A win against either Argentina or Switzerland on Wednesday would seal their place in the World Cup finals for the second time in history, with the winner facing either France or Spain.
