Thomas Tuchel appeared to lose his cool at ITV interviewer Gabriel Clarke as the England manager branded his side as “lucky” in their extra-time World Cup quarter-final win over Norway.
England eked out a 2-1 victory to seal their place in the semi-finals with Jude Bellingham scoring both, first cancelling out Andreas Schjelderup’s opener on the brink of half-time before pouncing on a rebound three minutes into extra time to net the winner.
It was an agonising watch for England at times, who were let off by VAR after Norway thought they’d retaken the lead soon after the restart, only for Erling Haaland to be adjudged of committing a foul on Elliot Anderson.
And Tuchel cut an exasperated figure at full-time, saying: “We made life very, very difficult for ourselves today. The result is fantastic. We are in the last four. It’s amazing but not happy with the performance. – in every sense.
“The commitment is there but we made life difficult for is in the way we played and how we played – sloppy, a lot of technical mistakes, not fast enough, not repetitive enough. We were lucky today.”
He was then asked by Clarke about England’s mentality given the mammoth occasion, which drew the ire of the German.
Tuchel responded: “It’s not the mentality. This is pure mentality! How can you ask about mentality?
“It’s not 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.”
Bellingham, who was hailed as “world class” by Tuchel, was later asked what he thought of his manager’s criticism of England’s performance.
“Yeah well, whatever,” Bellingham 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 our there who put in a great shift.”
England now stare down the barrel of a semi-final against either Argentina or Switzerland, which will take place in Atlanta on 15 July.
