1 hour ago
1
Thomas Tuchel wants his England substitutes to channel any anger they feel at not starting into making the difference when they can because the team that win the World Cup will be defined by productivity off the bench.
The head coach will prepare a heat-proof gameplan for the finals next summer when temperatures at many of the venues in the United States, Mexico and Canada are expected to be stifling and a major part will involve how best to use his substitutes.
Tuchel made big selection calls in Thursday’s 2-0 Wembley win over Serbia, none bigger than persisting with Morgan Rogers in the No 10 role and starting the recalled Jude Bellingham on the bench. Phil Foden, also back in the squad, was a substitute too. Bellingham and Foden made an impact when they came on in the 65th minute, combining to set up another replacement, Eberechi Eze, to score the second goal.
Tuchel is obsessed with creating a strong team spirit, a brotherhood as he calls it, and he remembers how the one he had at Chelsea drove the club’s Champions League triumph in 2021. He will not tolerate sulking. For him, it is about being proactive and positive.
“You can be angry at the coach, you can be angry at the situation,” Tuchel said of the players he must keep in reserve. “But if you see the nations that win, see the clubs that win the Champions League, then the bench is on their feet. For the last eight to 10 minutes, there is no one sat there thinking: ‘I should be on the field, why am I not there?’
“I experienced this once in the amazing run with Chelsea and it was non-stop, everyone was pushing and fighting from the bench even if they were not picked. They were ready. This makes in the end the difference and I strongly believe we should arrive with a team like that.”
It was put to Tuchel that England would not win the World Cup without goals from the substitutes. “One hundred per cent,” he said. “We need a good bench. We play in 40 degrees and we will play after a long, long season. We are maybe the nation that suffers the most from international football, from long seasons, two cups, cup finals, semi-finals. We need to be ready to do substitutions until hopefully the late stages of the World Cup.”
Tuchel made the point that he would need to “think outside the box” and lean, perhaps, on the additional window during half-time that coaches have to make substitutions. Under Fifa regulations, teams are allowed up to five changes during regulation time, spread across a maximum of three substitution windows – but they do not include half-time.
“We have to maybe worship even the extra slot we have at half-time,” he said. “We maybe can have one or two changes at half-time.”
Tuchel delved into the psychology of the substitute. He said he despised having to leave players out of the 23-man matchday squad – as he did with the new call-up, Alex Scott, against Serbia. More broadly, he is convinced his players can come to accept the situation if it is presented clearly.
“They will never be happy, they don’t have to be happy because no one is used to sitting on the bench,” he said. “This is the nature of a strong national team. I just hate this talk to Alex Scott, to give the message: ‘You are not in the squad.’ I don’t like it, I have stomach pain and even to see players on the bench, they will never like it.
“But I strongly believe they will accept it. We need to have the roles clear. I think in a 10-day camp, it is easy. Sometimes you are picked, sometimes you are not picked. Or you are the competition for someone who maybe has his nose ahead and he starts regularly. Once we go to a tournament, clarity in the role is very important. The better player can also think about it and be honest: ‘Can I accept this? Is it good for me? Can I make the most of this for the team?’”
after newsletter promotion
Tuchel does not like or understand the focus on Bellingham. But he did say the Real Madrid midfielder had taken his exclusion from the lineup against Serbia with “no problem at all”. Bellingham is pushing to be in from the outset against Albania in Tirana on Sunday, the final tie of the qualification campaign – from which Marc Guéhi has withdrawn because of a foot injury.
“I explained it to Jude before the team meeting for Serbia,” Tuchel said. “We’d had three fantastic performances with Morgan, so one of the reasons was to keep him in this position. The second reason was we absolutely didn’t know what was coming from Serbia [under the new manager, Veljko Paunovic].
“The pressing structure between Declan [Rice], Morgan and Harry [Kane] in the middle of the pitch was excellent in the last matches and we had the feeling it would be easier for them to adapt and adjust if needed. And it would be a bit unfair to just put Jude there and say: ‘The press is like this and this.’ It is also a new press for him because we changed our way of pressing in the last two camps. We thought it would be nicer for him to play in the second half once we had the clear information about Serbia.”
There was one worry for Tuchel after he introduced Bellingham, Foden and Eze into the front four, Foden playing as a false 9. “We were straight away dangerous and fluid in attack but we were also somehow a little bit disconnected from the front to the back,” he said. “I need to get my head around why this happened.”
Tuchel must also decide whether he will start to sing the national anthem before matches. The German has so far remained silent. “I will think about it,” he said. “At the World Cup? Yeah, maybe. Let’s see.”
