Thomas Tuchel has been here before with England. In need of a step forward. Looking for a launchpad.
This time last year it came in Serbia as England travelled to Belgrade on the back of a mundane series of results and won 5-0 in World Cup qualifying.
Tuchel believes the few days spent training between a dull 2-0 home win over Andorra and their game in the Stadion Rajko Mitic were among the most crucial of his two years in office.
‘I felt something change and it was for the better,’ Tuchel has said.
All of that happened in the absence of Jude Bellingham. Back then – with Bellingham injured and Tuchel wrestling with issues of hierarchy within his squad – the England manager began to consider a future without the Real Madrid star as a regular starter.
As England landed in Prague on Monday looking to move on from Saturday’s defeat to Spain at Wembley, things have changed to a degree that it is now impossible to imagine a Tuchel team without Bellingham in it.
‘Jude looks like a real member of the squad on and off the pitch,’ said Tuchel last night.
Jude Bellingham has become central to Thomas Tuchel’s England plans after a rocky start
The Real Madrid midfielder was immense during England’s World Cup campaign last summer
‘The key in itself is that players want to come and want to really play and don’t only say it but then prove the point when they are here.’
Such has been Bellingham’s transformation from enduring problem to the next England captain in waiting that even Tuchel’s language around him has changed.
It was as recently as early summer 2025 that Tuchel was describing some of the 23-year-old’s behaviour as ‘repulsive’ after a fractious defeat to Senegal at the City Ground in Nottingham.
Yet as he spoke in the Wembley interview area on Saturday night, he was comfortable enough to suggest Bellingham is at his best when playing with ‘rage’.
That reflects a softening of the relationship between player and coach. Bellingham still chooses to keep the majority of his thoughts on the matter to himself and that’s his prerogative.
Tuchel, though, has seen what he wanted to see from his most talented player around St George’s Park and on England away trips. On the field, meanwhile, he has seen an improvement in the tactical and positional indiscipline that used to leave Tuchel forever concerned about just what Bellingham may do next.
‘I liked his performance a lot the other day because it was very consistent throughout the 90 minutes,’ he said.
‘It was a very mature, very good performance. He was always involved.
‘Jude can play in these high intensive patterns and then needs time to recharge the batteries.
‘But against Spain he had played economically and was always a difference maker, always available.’
England’s defeat by Spain at the weekend has left Tuchel under a little pressure. As such, he needs to look to players who can bring his team the consistency it now undeniably needs.
Missing the likes of Declan Rice in the centre of midfield and with his defence looking as unsure as any England back line has done for a long time, Tuchel’s England will need its big players to stand up in games against Czechia (home and away) and Croatia over the next eight days.
Having been England’s best player at the World Cup in America, Bellingham would appear to at last be feeding off the responsibility that comes with his status.
For a while it wasn’t the case. Too often his messages on the field of play were the wrong ones but it was noticeable on Saturday after captain Harry Kane slipped in missing a penalty that would have given his team a 3-1 lead, Bellingham was the first one on the scene to acknowledge exactly what had happened.
This is what Tuchel means when he talks about Bellingham looking like a ‘real member of the squad’. The 53-year-old knows that Bellingham will always present with rough edges. The task is to make sure it’s the opposition that takes the impact of them.
Tuchel has a big decision to make over whether to give Trent Alexander-Arnold his chance
The Three Lions are gearing up to face Czechia in the Nations League on Tuesday night
Asked if Bellingham himself had grown to love playing for his country, Tuchel said: ‘Yes and we also have to provide an environment and atmosphere where players can actually feel free and express themselves and be the best vision of themselves.
‘It is a give and go. We need to provide that and the player needs to have the hunger and the excitement to show up.’
England face a Czechia team short on form and results tonight but lost 2-1 here in 2019 and have some cleaning up to do after the nature of their defeat to Spain.
Tuchel knows what he saw when England had the ball at Wembley. England played with a purpose and belief that we didn’t often see during the summer’s World Cup and Bellingham – along with Barcelona’s Anthony Gordon – was at the heart of it.
Equally, England were a calamity waiting to happen in their own half and at the centre of the defence Tuchel only has inexperience in the shape of Jarrad Branthwaite and Trevoh Chalobah to call on as he looks to fix it.
Tuchel craves continuity with this England team. He has a spine of seven or eight players that he would pick every game if he could. Yet the fact he is missing a few and the nature of this September/October schedule means that he will have to mix and match a little in the days to come.
He was reluctant to yet again enter the Trent Alexander-Arnold debate, offering only two or three sentences when asked to explain his qualities. It feels as though that is one kind of background noise he could do without. The truth is, however, that Tuchel cannot rely on eleven players to take him where he wants to go ahead of the home Euros in 2028. He needs a core of sixteen or seventeen and maybe he is not quite there yet.
With his own country Germany losing to Greece this weekend under their new coach Jurgen Klopp, it was put to Tuchel that international management is maybe rather harder than people think.
‘Everyone told me that it is tough to form a team,’ nodded Tuchel.
Thomas Tuchel is under pressure after the World Cup and Saturday’s defeat against Spain
‘There are so many ideas in football and everyone comes with different ones and the focus was, you know, to bring them together, play properly as a team and implement patterns of play. ‘And we are a step further. We had a tournament together, we had this experience together. We digested it.
‘We had a result that some think was not enough. Some think it was a good result. But we continue and this helps us.
‘It is a process. We are lacking a lot of players who have been with us from the World Cup, otherwise we would have been one more step ahead but I think you could see it was clear against Spain what we were trying to do.’
Expected England XI to face Czechia: (4-2-3-1) Trafford; Quansah, Guehi, Branthwaite, Hall; Anderson, Lewis Skelly; Rogers, Bellingham, Gordon; Kane
