Explosive comments made by England manager Thomas Tuchel and their star man Jude Bellingham continue to make waves ahead of a blockbuster World Cup semi-final with reigning champions Argentina.
Debate is raging from Newcastle to London after Tuchel, in a post-match interview with ITV Sport reporter Gabriel Clarke, criticised the Three Lions’ performance, saying the team was “lucky” to win.
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“The commitment is there, but it made life very, very difficult for us in the way we played, how we played, sloppy, lots of safety, not fast enough, not enough,” the German said.
Shortly after, when interviewing Bellingham, Clarke questioned the midfielder about the manager’s comments, who wasn’t best pleased.
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“Whatever,” Bellingham told ITV Sport, before adding in a later press conference: “Maybe he doesn’t know what it’s like to play in those kind of conditions against Erling Haaland, [Martin] Ødegaard, [Antonio] Nusa, [Alexander] Sørloth.”
Clarke, a veteran sports broadcaster who has covered the last six World Cups, has since become public enemy number one in the UK, and accused of trying to create a rift in the team ahead of one of the nation’s most crucial ever matches.
Speaking on beIN Sports, former Ireland international Jason McAteer accused the 62-year-old of asking a “loaded question” to Bellingham.
“I thought it was naughty,” he said.
“I don’t think he had enough context — the way he spoke to Jude Bellingham, I think he knew what he was doing.
“There is history between the player and the manager, we’ve seen that before the squad was announced. There’s all that little history as well, and he knows that, Gabriel Clarke.
“I think he was just jabbing a little bit and seeing if he could get a response off the back of a very emotional game, a very emotional time.
“I think what we’ve lost is the context of the conversation that was had between Tuchel [and Clarke].”
Broadcaster James Melville wrote on X that Clarke had misinterpreted Tuchel’s criticism, calling it “unnecessarily disruptive”.
“Gabriel Clarke’s two interviews with Thomas Tuchel and Jude Bellingham were dreadful,” he wrote.
“Tuchel was very clear in his praise for England’s strength of character but he wasn’t happy with the performance.
“Clarke failed to understand Tuchel’s mentality comments. He then gave a misleading follow up to Bellingham which suggested to Bellingham that Tuchel was unhappy with the team.
“Unnecessarily disruptive and the wrong context of interviewing in two separate interviews.”
French legend Thierry Henry, meanwhile, felt Clarke’s line of questioning for Tuchel missed the point.
“I didn’t understand the questions,” he said on Fox Sports US.
“The guy is telling you actually that it was all effort and mentality, and you’re asking about the mentality.
“He was talking about a technical aspect of the game – he wasn’t happy with how the players were playing.
“You don’t even need to ask that question – if he’s changing stuff, it’s because he’s not happy with what’s on the field. And what we cannot doubt with this team is the mentality that they have, and the grit.”
England captain Harry Kane hit back at accusations of a rift in an interview with BBC Sport, calling the reaction “an English thing to do”.
“Players on the pitch know more than anyone when you’re playing well, when you’re not playing well. That is part and parcel of football — we understand what the boss meant,” Kane said.
“When you’re playing a game, especially a game like that, and you get asked a question, two minutes, five minutes after the final whistle, when he hadn’t really known what the manager’s really said, it’s like ‘what do you want Jude to say?’
“It’s easy to try and create this division. It always seems to be maybe an English mentality, an English thing to do at these major tournaments, but it’s the complete opposite.
“The group is where we are because of our togetherness – not just the players but the coach and the staff and everyone who’s involved.
“Things sometimes get made out so much more than what they really are.”
Former Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan was even more scathing.
“Why didn’t he say to Jude Bellingham ‘he thought your mentality was outstanding, but your performance was poor?” he said on British sports radio station talkSPORT.
“I would imagine the reasons why he didn’t do that is because that would enable a different response from the player.
“He knows exactly the animals he’s dealing with … we are curating an outcome, and the outcome is there’s a potential, a distinct possibility, a bankable possibility, that Jude Bellingham might take the bait.”
A viral caller to talkSPORT summed up the public mood by describing Clarke as ‘an absolute disgrace’.
“He completely misread Tuchel’s comments about the team playing badly, and then he took that comment and ran with it to a tired and emotional Bellingham,” the caller said.
“This is just typical of our media: we destroy our heroes, like Gazza [Paul Gascoigne], [Wayne] Rooney and now Jude.”
However, the reaction has been far from one-sided, with a host of journalists and broadcasters leaping to Clarke’s defence.
Chief among them was Piers Morgan, who wrote on X that criticism of the reporter was “absolute codswallop”.
“@gabrielclarke05 did his job, superbly well. He asked the right questions, and got very newsworthy answers,” he wrote.
“It’s not his fault that Tuchel decided to go nuclear (which I loved) and then of course he had to ask Bellingham about it.”
Morgan also hit back at Kane’s interview with BBC Sport.
“Love Harry Kane, but it wasn’t Gabriel Clarke who said England’s performance was poor, it was Thomas Tuchel,” he wrote.
“If managers show raw honesty like that — which I loved — of course any proper journalist is going to ask the players what they think of what he said!”
Writing in The Telegraph, football scribe Alan Tyers called Clarke a “gifted, experienced reporter” and said he was ‘absolutely within his rights’ to ask Tuchel and Bellingham the questions he did.
“It looked to me that Tuchel was himself fired-up when he spoke to Clarke… given that Tuchel had said that to Clarke, what is the reporter supposed to do other than ask Bellingham what he thinks about it?” Tyers asked.
“It is, as Roy Keane might put it, literally his job… he does not work for the England team. He works for ITV and his most important duties are to the viewers and his own integrity, of which he has plenty.”
England’s clash with Argentina in Atlanta gives them a chance to end a 60-year wait for a World Cup final berth, having last made the decider in 1966 in a 4-2 win over West Germany for their one and only title.
Awaiting the victor will be Spain, who comfortably accounted for France 2-0 in a surprisingly one-sided semi-final to leave them one win away from matching their 2010 World Cup triumph in South Africa.