Thomas Tuchel has told Jude Bellingham he faces a fight to be in England’s starting line-up for the World Cup, as the manager revealed he has “14 or 15 potential starters” in his squad.
The Real Madrid midfielder, who started all seven matches at Euro 2024, has only started four times since Tuchel took over as England boss in January 2025, with Aston Villa’s Morgan Rogers emerging as the German’s preferred choice. Rogers featured in 12 of Tuchel’s 13 matches in charge and was the only player to appear in all eight World Cup qualifiers.
“Thomas Tuchel says Jude Bellingham faces a fight for England's World Cup starting XI, revealing he has 14-15 'potential starters'.”
“Yes, he has,” Tuchel said when asked if Bellingham has a fight on his hands. “He is one of the starters, he knows he is one of the starters, but we have 14 or 15 proper starters and Jude is one of them.”
Bellingham’s relationship with Tuchel has been under scrutiny since the manager described his behaviour during last June’s defeat by Senegal as “repulsive” – a remark he later apologised for. In November, Tuchel said he would “review” Bellingham’s conduct after his reaction to being substituted against Albania. The 22-year-old also missed two qualifiers in September with a shoulder injury, was overlooked for October’s camp, and was forced out of March friendlies with a hamstring issue.
But Tuchel was impressed with Bellingham’s performance in Saturday’s 1-0 World Cup warm-up win over New Zealand in Tampa, where the midfielder took the captain’s armband after coming on at half-time. “You can see Jude has for sure the decisiveness and bite,” Tuchel said. “He had his break, unfortunately, in a decisive part of the season… 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.”
The manager’s tough stance was foreshadowed in his first address to England’s players in March 2025, footage of which has been released by the Football Association. Tuchel set out his plan to win the World Cup, comparing it to conquering Mount Everest and establishing a series of “base camps”. He told the squad: “The mission of why we are here is very very clear. We want to be world champions. We want to put the second star on our shirt.”
Tuchel, flanked by assistant Anthony Barry, spoke of the need for a “brotherhood” and recalled a conversation with an unnamed World Cup winner who explained the difference between a quarter-final exit and victory. “He said it was the same level, the same quality of players. But once we arrived as a brotherhood we were ready to die for each other,” Tuchel said. “Let’s build guys, let’s build something special until we arrive in the US.”
The German has already demonstrated his ruthlessness by axing Phil Foden, Cole Palmer and Trent Alexander-Arnold. Bellingham, once an automatic pick, now finds himself fighting not just for a starting place, but to prove he belongs in Tuchel’s brotherhood.