Jude Bellingham shrugged off criticism of England’s performance from Thomas Tuchel after his two goals against Norway booked a place in the World Cup semi-finals for the fourth time.
A virtuoso display from the Real Madrid star inspired a comeback victory after Andreas Schjelderup had given Norway the lead, with Bellingham scoring a controversial equaliser just before half-time. Replays appeared to show a Norway goal-kick hitting an overhead cable in the buildup, although Fifa released a statement saying it had not.
Bellingham pounced on a mistake from the Norway goalkeeper, Ørjan Håskjold Nyland, in the third minute of extra time to score his sixth goal of the World Cup – two behind Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé and level with his captain, Harry Kane. But despite England reaching the semi-finals for the first time since 2018 under Gareth Southgate, Tuchel was clearly not happy with England’s level of performance and claimed his players had “made life very very difficult for ourselves”.
“The result is fantastic, we are in the last four – it’s amazing – but I’m not happy with the performance,” the head coach told ITV. “In every sense. Again the commitment is there but we made life very very difficult for ourselves in the way we played, how we played: sloppy, a lot of technical mistakes, not fast enough, not repetitive enough. We were lucky today.”
Bellingham was clearly not impressed when asked to respond to that criticism. “Yeah, well, whatever. Whatever,” he said, his body language also telling. “It’s difficult out there. It’s a tough shift. All the players have put in a tough shift, so my thoughts and appreciation goes to the players who were out there and put in a great shift yet again.”
Kane said of Tuchel: “He just said in the changing room: massive congratulations and we should enjoy it and celebrate but it still feels like there’s a part of him that knows we can do better, which in a way is a good thing. If we are in the semi-final of a World Cup knowing we can still improve, still find another level, then we’ve got to take that as a positive.”
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