England manager Thomas Tuchel has pledged to harness Jude Bellingham’s competitive edge after the Real Madrid star’s fiery reaction marred Tuesday’s historic 3-1 friendly defeat to Senegal – the first ever loss to an African nation in Three Lions history.
The controversial match at Nottingham Forest’s City Ground saw Bellingham’s late equalizer disallowed before Senegal capitalized with a stoppage-time third goal. Tuchel physically restrained the 21-year-old midfielder from confronting officials post-match, acknowledging the challenge of balancing Bellingham’s passion with discipline.
“He has a certain something and brings an edge. It’s needed if we want to achieve big things,” Tuchel told talkSPORT. “It needs to be channelled towards the opponent and towards our goal, and not to intimidate team-mates or be aggressive towards team-mates or referees but always on winning.”
The German tactician emphasized Bellingham’s intensity as both asset and liability: “He has the fire — I don’t want to dim that, he should play with that as that’s his strength. But the fire comes also with some attribute that can intimidate teammates. Sometimes you see the explosion towards referees and the anger in his game.”
Tuchel, hired to end England’s 58-year trophy drought since the 1966 World Cup, faces mounting pressure after an underwhelming start. His squad has labored through three narrow World Cup qualifying wins against minnows Albania, Latvia and Andorra before Tuesday’s setback.
With exactly one year until the 2026 World Cup kicks off, the former Chelsea, PSG and Bayern Munich boss remains optimistic: “I already have an idea of what to do. We did some experiments in the second camp, not everything was bad… Each game is a learning situation and helps us mould the team and find solutions.”
The defeat highlighted England’s ongoing struggle to build on Gareth Southgate’s era of near-misses, having reached two Euro finals plus World Cup quarter and semi-finals since 2018.