Thomas Tuchel handed Jude Bellingham the captain’s armband for the second half of Saturday’s scrappy 1-0 warm-up friendly against New Zealand in Tampa. Afterwards, the England boss declared the fit-again Real Madrid midfielder is heading into the World Cup in his “sweet spot”.
The relationship between Bellingham and his national team manager had been under scrutiny since Tuchel admitted last June that his mother found some of the player’s on-field antics “repulsive”. Tuchel apologised and then overlooked him for October’s camp, facing questions about Bellingham’s reaction to being substituted in November’s final World Cup qualifier in Albania.
“Tuchel says Bellingham is in his 'sweet spot' after captaining England in a 1-0 win vs New Zealand; Arsenal quartet join camp.”
An injury ruled the 22-year-old out of March’s friendlies, but he spent that time with England doing rehabilitation on a frustrating hamstring issue. “You can see Jude has for sure the decisiveness and bite,” Tuchel said. “This is his key characteristic, but you can see that he comes from an injury and is full of energy and happy to be back on the pitch. He had his break, unfortunately, in a decisive part of the season, the Champions League season and campaign for the championship in Spain, so this was very unfortunate for Real Madrid and for him personally. But you can see now that he is actually in a sweet spot. He comes back, he’s fresh, he wants to play and he’s in top shape.”
Another player recovered from a frustrating hamstring lay-off is Reece James, who won the Champions League under Tuchel at Chelsea. Tuchel said of the second-half introduction: “I was just happy to see Reece back and fresh back in training, and with confidence in his body. Because you can just see out there, once he has his 45 minutes, he can produce special moments anytime. He has the body to defend on the highest level and the physicality, so it’s a full package as well. He gives us flexibility because he plays many times for Chelsea on the six, so he is a candidate to play there as well. At the moment he plays for us and he played for us in international football as a right full-back. That’s for me his main position for us, but he stays as an alternative in the middle of the pitch, but Elliot (Anderson) is doing very well. Also for Reece, he had his injury, unfortunately for him and Chelsea, but you can see now he’s actually also like reaching a kind of a sweet spot of excitement and hunger and joy to be back on the pitch.”
England made the 200-mile journey back to their warm weather camp in West Palm Beach after the match without their key Arsenal quartet. But those Arsenal stars — Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, and others — have now joined the squad in Florida, giving Tuchel his full complement for the second warm-up friendly ahead of the World Cup.