Jude Bellingham Brushes Off Tuchel’s Criticism After Quarterfinal Win

Jude Bellingham and England are headed to the 2026 FIFA World Cup semifinals, but not everybody was thrilled with their performance on Saturday.

Despite the 2-1 quarterfinal victory over Norway, manager Thomas Tuchel wasn’t overly happy with his squad’s quality of play throughout the match, going as far as to call it a lucky win in his postgame interview.

Tuchel said:

“We made life very, very difficult for ourselves today. Not happy with the performance. Everything, again the commitment is there, but we made life very, very difficult for us in the way we played. Sloppy, a lot of technical mistakes, not fast enough, not repetitive enough. We were lucky today,”

Soon after, the hero of the match, Bellingham, was asked about Tuchel’s comments, and he wasn’t having any of the negativity.

Bellingham said:

“Yeah well, whatever. 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,”

The 23-year-old Bellingham scored both goals in the win, pushing his tournament totals to six goals and one assist in six matches. He now sits tied for fourth with teammate Harry Kane in the race for the Golden Boot.