{"id":784888,"date":"2026-09-28T03:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T03:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/784888\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T03:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T03:42:11","slug":"thomas-tuchel-resists-madness-of-calls-to-rest-england-players-despite-longer-window-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/784888\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Tuchel resists \u2018madness\u2019 of calls to rest England players despite longer window | England"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thomas Tuchel says it would be \u201cmadness\u201d to allow his England players or the clubs to pick and choose their matches during the elongated Nations League<\/a> window as he promised to go full throttle for victory against Czechia in Prague on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The manager did accept that Declan Rice needed to rest and could not be part of the squad in light of the Arsenal midfielder\u2019s heavy workload across a number of seasons and well-documented fitness issues. Rice was at Wembley on Saturday to watch England lose 3-2 against Spain<\/a> in their opening Nations League game.<\/p>\n

But now that Tuchel has his group, he says there is no room for compromise and certainly not to speak to club managers who might want to make deals over their players\u2019 minutes. Tuchel does not want to rotate his starting personnel, although he does accept it could be impractical. After Prague, England<\/a> go to Rijeka to play Croatia on Saturday before returning to Wembley to face Czechia next Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t take calls from Premier League managers,\u201d Tuchel said. \u201cI never called any national team coach [when he was in club football]. I cannot manage [the minutes of] the players. It\u2019s just impossible. I knew as a club coach \u2026 if I would call a coach in Brazil or Argentina, they would not know what I am talking about. The players would not know what I am talking about.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would I do this and start giving the players the impression that it\u2019s OK to take a step back or share a half or to rest one match? I would never. It\u2019s madness. We want to win the next match. I would love not to rotate but I am not sure if it\u2019s possible. An ideal scenario would be to go again and go again and go again. With six or seven players minimum that start again \u2013 to put the responsibility on them and for them to feel the trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tuchel accepted the Spain defeat had increased the pressure for the trip to Prague but he was unconcerned. \u201cIt\u2019s nothing we can\u2019t handle,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to be proactive and go for it. There is no room for managing [the players] or an economic style. It\u2019s how the team want to play, how we want to play so let\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tuchel was asked whether Jude Bellingham, who was at his rampaging best against Spain, could sustain his all-or-nothing style for another three England games in quick succession. \u201cIt\u2019s the only style he can play,\u201d Tuchel said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just his game. It\u2019s not an economic game. Let\u2019s see. I would love to have him four times on the pitch. The concern is that he hasn\u2019t done it this season in this tight period. We will need to check with the physios. We will not put Jude at any risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bellingham created a game-high five chances against Spain, including the assist for Anthony Gordon\u2019s equaliser for 1-1. He won the penalty that Harry Kane<\/a> missed that would have given England a 3-1 lead. His running with the ball repeatedly stretched the world champions. There was also the moment on 35 minutes when he clashed with his Real Madrid teammate Marc Cucurella.<\/p>\n

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Harry Kane\u2019s penalty miss was costly for England. Photograph: Tom Jenkins\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

\u201cJude likes that, he gets better if that happens,\u201d Tuchel said. \u201cIt\u2019s better if he plays with a bit of rage. It\u2019s what he does. I think sometimes he is looking for these moments to get his fire going. He doesn\u2019t know any [Madrid] teammates [during an international game]. He is still friends with them but not for the 90 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a wild game against Spain. England conceded early and could have been four or five down by the 35th minute. Their defending was loose. They rallied to lead 2-1 at half-time and the match turned after Kane\u2019s penalty miss in the 54th minute when he felt his standing foot give way. Tuchel insisted his team was not far away from beating the very best.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Harry doesn\u2019t slip we win the game,\u201d Tuchel said. \u201cIf Harry doesn\u2019t slip we go two goals up. We were clearly the better team until that moment. Of course, Spain never panic. How far away are we from that? One small slip from Harry.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we had won, we would have deserved it but it wouldn\u2019t have made us favourites for the Euros. We need to go step by step. They came with their strongest team. We had some key players missing. I am fine with this performance. We could have won the game and didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thomas Tuchel says it would be \u201cmadness\u201d to allow his England players or the clubs to pick and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":784889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-784888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}