Thomas Tuchel described England’s quarter-final victory over Norway as “sloppy” and said the Three Lions were “lucky” to reach the final four at the World Cup.
England booked their spot in the semi-finals of the competition with a 2-1 win at Miami Stadium, with Jude Bellingham’s brilliant brace sending them through after extra time.
Andreas Schjelderup had given Norway a 36th-minute lead, only for Bellingham to equalise in first-half stoppage time with a fine finish into the bottom-right corner.
Norway had a goal ruled out in the second half when Torbjorn Heggem poked past Jordan Pickford, with Erling Haaland penalised for a shove on Elliot Anderson in the build-up.
Kristoffer Ajer then hit the crossbar, but three minutes into extra time, Bellingham netted the winner when Orjan Nyland spilled Morgan Rogers’ shot from distance, allowing the Real Madrid midfielder to steal in and slide home his sixth goal at the World Cup this year.
With braces against Mexico and Norway, Bellingham is the first player to score 2+ goals in consecutive knockout stage appearances in the same World Cup edition since Diego Maradona in 1986 (two against England and two against Belgium).
England have also now progressed to the semi-finals in four major tournaments since 2018 (World Cup/Euro), which is as many as they had reached in their history prior to the 2018 World Cup (four), though Tuchel was far from impressed.
“We made life very, very difficult for ourselves today,” Tuchel told ITV Sport. “The result is fantastic, we’re in the last four. It’s amazing. I’m not happy with the performance.
“In every sense. The commitment is there, but we made life very, very difficult for us in the way we played, how we played.
“Sloppy, tactical mistakes, not fast enough. Not repetitive enough. We were lucky enough.
“We will get better, we need to get better. Now it’s celebrations. Now it’s taking it all in. We need everything to make a better performance.”
4 – England have progressed to the semi-final in four major tournaments since 2018 (WC/Euro), as many as they had reached in their history prior to the 2018 World Cup (4).
Roaring. pic.twitter.com/wZcKnePCul
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England have now won four consecutive World Cup games, their longest winning run within a single edition since winning the competition back in 1966 (five).
Tuchel is also only the second manager to go unbeaten in his first six World Cup games in charge of England. The previous was Alf Ramsey in 1966, who had the exact same record after six matches (W5 D1).
England were playing in intense Miami heat with “feel-like” temperatures reported to be over 40 degrees. While Tuchel was unimpressed with the performance, he refuted claims this was down to a lack of mentality from his players.
“Mentality?” said a shocked Tuchel. “This [getting through] is pure mentality now. How can you talk about mentality now? This is pure mentality.
“It’s not a mentality problem. You can bottle it up and sell it. Why are you talking about mentality?
“It’s the quality of our game [that’s the problem]. We need to play better.”
Tuchel was also on hand to discuss his decision to replace Arsenal’s Declan Rice with Eberechi Eze at half-time.
Rice had been struggling with a lower back and hamstring problem ahead of the 3-2 win over Mexico in the last 16, as well as illness before taking on Norway.
“It was neither [illness or injury],” Tuchel told BBC Sport of his reasoning for replacing Rice.
“We wanted a more offensive change. We knew Declan would not last 90 minutes, nor 120 minutes, so we took him off.”
