Thomas Tuchel has made his point. Now Jude Bellingham must be restored to England’s No 10 role
In the 65th minute the Wembley crowd delivered the loudest noise of the night, louder than either of England’s two goals, louder even than the cheer when a paper aeroplane took off from the upper tier and landed on the pitch during a lull in the second half. Jude Bellingham arrived to a booming roar that told Thomas Tuchel exactly what fans thought about his choice to bench the Real Madrid midfielder. Some paid £80 per ticket, and they hadn’t come to see Morgan Rogers.
Of course, Bellingham couldn’t possibly have started Thursday’s 2-0 win over Serbia, not without Tuchel giving up his leverage. Tuchel stuck by his guns over recent months with a selection policy of retaining the players who were performing for England rather than picking familiar names, and his decision to omit Bellingham from October’s camp was a statement of intent. Throwing Bellingham back into the starting XI at the first opportunity would have undermined his own stance.
Tuchel’s handling of Bellingham is everything we expected from the German when he was appointed: stubborn, fierce and fascinating. The story goes back to Tuchel’s extraordinary comment in June that his mother found Bellingham’s on-field behaviour “repulsive”, for which the manager later apologised blaming a poor choice of words in his second language.
Yet Tuchel is meticulous and deliberate in his methods, and so even if we accept his explanation, it seems likely that his public criticism of Bellingham was not entirely off the cuff. In that now infamous radio interview, Tuchel finished the segment by describing Bellingham as “a special boy”, perhaps a subtle nod to how the manager sees his 22-year-old talent – not yet a man and not yet on the same level as his leaders in the England squad.
The issue stems not from a clash of personalities between manager and player, but from Tuchel’s concern that Bellingham can at times rub his teammates the wrong way. It goes back to the furore around Bellingham’s memorable bicycle kick against Slovakia at Euro 2024 which saved England from early elimination, when he celebrated by shouting “Who else?!”. It was an uncomfortable choice of words (Kane would be an obvious answer to that question, for one) and Bellingham later blamed his outburst on adrenaline.
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Jude Bellingham scored an overhead kick in stoppage time to help England to a 2-1 win over Slovakia in their last-16 meeting at Euro 2024 (Adam Davy/PA)
Tuchel sees the England team as belonging to his senior players and specifically his “captains” – Kane, Declan Rice, Jordan Henderson and John Stones. “They behave like captains and they are like captains,” he said earlier this season. “They are at the moment the drivers of the standards and the drivers of the mentality, and the drivers often on the pitch, so they are my captains.”
Does Bellingham’s presence upset the dynamic? Tuchel insists publicly that is not the case but the manager’s actions have made clear that he is prepared to make bold, unpopular decisions to protect squad harmony. “It is not about building a starting XI,” the manager said after the Serbia game. “It is about building a team and they buy into it, and put ego behind them because it is the right thing to do for the team.”
Bellingham’s place in the team, and perhaps even the squad, is not guaranteed. Yet the counter-argument runs that he is still young, still learning. He is allowed to make misjudgements. Perhaps more significantly, England simply cannot win the World Cup without the magic moments he provides so regularly for Real Madrid, in finals and in Clasicos.
He is England’s stardust, chief aura farmer, a player who can occupy two defenders with sheer presence alone. On Thursday night he looked too good for tired Serbian defenders: stronger, faster, like the biggest boy in the playground. Bellingham isn’t necessarily the best dribbler in the world, nor the best passer or finisher or creative talent; yet he excels at every attacking function and that makes him a uniquely rounded talent.
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Bellingham celebrates after scoring against Barcelona earlier this season (Getty Images)
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Along with Kylian Mbappe, Bellingham is considered a ‘leader’ at Madrid (Manu Fernandez/AP)
He is already considered a leader by Madrid – “like a captain without the armband”, according to one prominent Spanish journalist. He is mature beyond his years, and it was both amusing and telling this week that Bournemouth’s Alex Scott named Bellingham as his midfield idol, given they are the same age. Yet it is Rogers who currently possesses England’s coveted No 10 shirt, with Bellingham, Phil Foden, Eberechi Eze and Cole Palmer lined up like a string of supercars in the rearview mirror.
This is the great conundrum of international football, of course, a world in which talent is distributed unevenly across the pitch. England boast a bevy of attacking midfielders and Gareth Southgate was accused of indulging their reputations, crowbarring his best players into unfamiliar positions like Phil Foden’s unnatural deployment on the right wing (although it is forgotten that Southgate was bold in effectively ending the international careers of Joe Hart and Wayne Rooney in his early days).
Tuchel has made clear he will take a different approach, explicitly stating that Kane, Bellingham and Foden cannot all play together as Southgate tried. The manager has talked about giving players “clarity” and has laid out how he sees his three-man midfield with a No 6, a No 8 and a No 10. He will build his 26-man World Cup squad by picking two players per position for the first 22 spots, plus an extra goalkeeper, defender, midfielder and forward to offer versatile back-up.
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Bellingham prepares to enter the field against Serbia (Getty)
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The midfielder impressed in a brief cameo off the bench (The FA via Getty Images)
“We will always do what’s best for winning, we will always do what’s best for balance and we will try to keep the clarity, even if it means that we have to take tough decisions,” Tuchel said this week. “We take tough decisions in any camp and this will not change when we go to a tournament.”
So Bellingham will not go to the World Cup on reputation alone. Nor will Foden, Palmer and others. This perhaps is the great advantage of hiring an experienced coach on a short-term contract – all Tuchel cares about is winning the World Cup. There is no politics, no future-proofing of relationships to manage. He’s prepared to achieve his goal in a blaze of burnt bridges, in a way Southgate could not as the long-term manager.
England probably won’t win the World Cup because nobody really wins the World Cup, especially not an England men’s team on a far-flung continent. Yet it is truer still that England won’t win without Bellingham, the sort of player who lets fans dream. Sunday’s match with Albania is a chance to reclaim his place in the team, and this time he should start. Tuchel has made his point.
