Tuchel defends decision to leave Bellingham out of England squad

VIDEO SHOWS: THOMAS TUCHEL PRESS CONFERENCE FULL SCRIPT TO FOLLOW SHOWS: LONDON, ENGLAND, UK (OCTOBER 3, 2025) (NICHE MEDIA – Access all) 1. (SOUNDBITE) (English) THOMAS TUCHEL, ENGLAND MANAGER, SAYING:     "First of all, Jude (Bellingham) is a, I understand your focus on Jude, of course. First of all, he's a very special player, and for special players there can always be special rules. I get this. But for this camp, we decided that we stick with our straightforward decision to invite the same team. That applies also then for Jude. He deserves always to be in camp. I think there's an extra layer or like there's, on top of it, the situation that he has not gathered fully rhythm yet at Real Madrid. He is back in the team. He hasn't finished one full match until now, he has only started one match. So he is at the moment in the period where he gets his rhythm, where he gets back to full strength. There's an extra, there is this extra layer in the decision, but the decision stayed for this camp." 2. WHITE FLASH 3. (SOUNDBITE) (English) THOMAS TUCHEL, ENGLAND MANAGER, SAYING:     "No, there is also no problem between me and Phil Foden. There is no problem between me and Jack Grealish, very special players. Phil is back to influencing games, deciding games for Manchester City. Jack is very close to being the best version of himself, very special player, very special character. There is no problem at all and there is no personal problem in a nomination." 4. WHITE FLASH 5. (SOUNDBITE) (English) THOMAS TUCHEL, ENGLAND MANAGER, SAYING:     "Do I believe that we are a stronger team with Jude? Yes. Is he one of the best players in the world in midfield? Yes. But I told you last time when he was injured, what are we doing if a player like Jude is injured before the World Cup? Do we then cancel our, do we not travel? This is a team sport. This is a team sport. We have to find solutions. If players are injured, like now Cole Palmer, if we don't select players, we have to find a solution and I think we found solutions in the last camp. So this is more about last camp and what we started to build than about the dependency on individual players. We can have injuries of hugely influential players, not only Jude, but Declan (Rice), Harry (Kane), John Stones, you name it, like you name it, everyone has this particular role and it can happen right in front of the tournament and then we have to find solutions. It can never be the solution to depend on one player in football." 6. WHITE FLASH 7. (SOUNDBITE) (English) THOMAS TUCHEL, ENGLAND MANAGER, SAYING:     "Listen, this is not like, it is a decision for this camp. It was, like I said, it was the best camp in terms of team spirit, in terms of teamwork. This was the best camp so far. So we decided to invite the same group of players to build on, to make more stable what we built on." 8. WHITE FLASH 9. (SOUNDBITE) (English) THOMAS TUCHEL, ENGLAND MANAGER, SAYING:     "I truly believe that the fans can feel if there is a team out there that loves to play with each other, that loves to run for each other, that is there to give everything. And I think that was clearly visible in the match against Serbia. So now it's on us to follow up on that."  STORY: TO FOLLOW

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