Tuchel hails Bellingham's 'full potential' as England target fast start against Ghana

Thomas Tuchel has declared Jude Bellingham is now showing his “full potential” for England, and identified the pair’s partnership with Harry Kane as a potential route to World Cup glory, ahead of Tuesday’s group-stage clash with Ghana.

Bellingham scored England’s crucial third goal in a 4-2 victory over Croatia and is set to earn his 50th international cap against Ghana — a remarkable milestone for a player who does not turn 23 until June 29. His performance drew specific praise from FIFA’s technical study group, with analyst Paolo Wanchope describing the Real Madrid midfielder as “very intelligent” and highlighting Kane’s ability to drop deep as something “not ever seen before” in terms of their combined movement.

Tuchel was effusive about how Bellingham has bought into the collective structure around him. “In general I saw a strong team performance, I saw the full potential of Jude and the full commitment,” the England head coach said. “Jude played fully into our idea and was fully committed to the team idea and team spirit and to play in full cohesion with everyone else. He was very important, super reliable.”

The England manager also highlighted the contributions of Declan Rice and Elliot Anderson as important to the system, pointing to the improved connections across the midfield as a significant step forward from previous performances.

Despite the emphatic scoreline against Croatia, England were second-best in the first half and conceded on the stroke of half-time before producing what Tuchel described as their best 25 to 30 minutes of the game after the interval. Replicating that level of intensity from the opening whistle is the challenge he has set his squad ahead of the Ghana fixture.

“That is a tricky part, to keep the level up,” Tuchel acknowledged. “I am very happy because we found an answer to adversity. We conceded in a very tricky moment, last shot of the first half, and then came up with the best 25 minutes as an answer when we were very, very strong. The things that were not so good — we do not need to amend anything new, we just need to do our stuff better from the first half.”

Tuchel also outlined what he expects from Ghana, warning that England must be prepared for a physically demanding and tactically different test. “I expect more ball possession. I expect Ghana to rely on counter-attacks because they are very physical, very fast and dangerous in counter-attacks,” he said.