Tuchel brands England 'lucky' and clashes with interviewer after Bellingham double edges past Norway

Thomas Tuchel rounded on an ITV interviewer and publicly branded England ‘lucky’ after Jude Bellingham’s extra-time strike sealed a 2-1 World Cup quarter-final win over Norway, sending the Three Lions into the last four.

Bellingham was the decisive figure at the venue, first equalising on the stroke of half-time after Andreas Schjelderup had given Norway the lead, then pouncing on a rebound three minutes into extra time to net the winner. England’s passage was further aided by VAR, which disallowed what would have been Norway’s retaken lead after Erling Haaland was adjudged to have fouled Elliot Anderson.

Despite the result, Tuchel made no attempt to hide his frustration. “We made life very, very difficult for ourselves today,” he said at full-time. “The result is fantastic. We are in the last four. It’s amazing but not happy with the performance — in every sense. Sloppy, a lot of technical mistakes, not fast enough, not repetitive enough. We were lucky today.”

When ITV’s Gabriel Clarke followed up by asking about England’s mentality given the scale of the occasion, Tuchel bristled visibly. “It’s not the mentality. This is pure mentality! How can you ask about mentality? There’s no mentality problem — you can bottle it up and sell it. It’s about the quality of our games. It has nothing to do with mentality.”

Tuchel did, however, single out Bellingham for praise, describing the midfielder as “world class”. Bellingham himself offered a measured response when asked about his manager’s pointed criticism of the team’s display. “Yeah well, whatever,” he said. “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.”

England now face either Argentina or Switzerland in the semi-finals in Atlanta on 15 July.