England boss Thomas Tuchel has emphatically quashed talk of a rift between him and Jude Bellingham.
Murmurs of the duo not seeing eye-to-eye were ramped up immediately following England’s gritty quarter-final win over Norway.
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Speaking to ITV’s Gabriel Clarke after the match, Tuchel conceded he was ‘not happy’ with England’s display but strongly refuted any suggestion the performance was linked to a ‘mentality problem’.
Clarke then told Bellingham about Tuchel’s gripes, only for the midfielder to reply: “Yeah, well, whatever.”
Bellingham’s spiky response unsurprisingly generated headlines, even though he was the man who scored both of England’s goals to defeat Norway in extra-time.
Some, including Simon Jordan, leapt to Bellingham’s defence and felt the way Clarke conducted the interview was unfair on the midfielder.
Tuchel: Media trying to ‘create cracks where no cracks are’
Now Tuchel himself has weighed in on the fallout as he questioned why Clarke chose to hone in on his assessment of England’s performance when speaking to Bellingham rather than presenting the full picture.
“I wonder who blows these things up,” Tuchel exclusively told eSPORTY.
“So there is nothing to blow up and if it’s blown up it’s blown up in the media of course.
“Like 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, if you just cut all this and tell him, oh your coach said you were sloppy, what do you expect?
“Of course you get the comment that you get and then you try to blow it up and 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’m a competitive coach. I push this team to the limit and that was my assessment and, like I said, I think the question was unfair in this moment of time towards Jude because he cut all the compliments out of my assessment and just asked about the critical points so I can understand what you expect of a player that just gave everything and stands there in front of a microphone in a flash interview.
“That’s just what it is, but we’re close as ever and closer than ever before. You can see that on the field, energy and mentality on campus is excellent through the last days and we’re ready to go for it.”
About to get Messi
Tuchel understandably did not want to devote much attention to the media blow-up over Bellingham’s interview given he has to prepare his team for a second World Cup semi-final in three tournaments, as England face Argentina.
The Three Lions have not reached the World Cup final since 1966, which is the last time they won it all.
To do that, they must defeat a plucky Argentina side which boasts eight-time Ballon d’Or winner Lionel Messi.
Even though he may be 39 and covered the least amount of ground in the group stages, Messi is still more than capable of producing moments of magic.
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Tuchel knows it is a ‘big ask’ to lock up Messi, who is leading the Golden Boot race alongside Kylian Mbappe with eight goals, but believes his team will be more than up for the challenge.
“A lot of people have tried throughout the last decades and not a lot have succeeded,” Tuchel said.
“You stop the supply to him, you stop passing options for him and still, he’s a magician, he finds his ways, he finds gaps, he sees things just seconds earlier than anyone else.
“I have the feeling it’s a different kind of vision going on. He is one of the all-time greats in this game and he proves it game after game after game in this tournament which is highly impressive.
“But we are here to beat him and to beat his team. So it’s a big ask but we’re up for it.”
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