Jude Bellingham's Fight for England World Cup Spot

Thomas Tuchel has warned that Jude Bellingham is in a straight fight to keep his place in England’s World Cup XI – even while insisting the Real Madrid star remains “one of the starters” in a swollen core of trusted players.

The England manager, who took over from Gareth Southgate in January 2025, says he now sees “14 or 15 potential starters” in a squad that has quietly shifted in shape and hierarchy since Euro 2024. Bellingham, once the immovable centrepiece of Southgate’s side, is no longer guaranteed the same status.

“He has [a fight],” Tuchel told reporters when asked directly if Bellingham faces a battle to make the team. “He is one of the starters, he knows he is one of the starters, but we have 14 or 15 potential starters. These roles can always change, but at the moment I think there are 14 or 15 proper starters and Jude is one of them.”

That last line matters. Under Southgate, Bellingham barely came off the pitch. He started all seven games at Euro 2024 and missed just 29 minutes of the entire tournament, the heartbeat of England’s run. Under Tuchel, the landscape looks very different.

Since the German’s appointment, Bellingham has started only four matches, with three more appearances from the bench. The player who has come to symbolise the Tuchel era so far is not the Champions League-winning midfielder from Madrid, but Aston Villa’s Morgan Rogers.

Rogers has featured in 12 of Tuchel’s 13 games in charge and was the only player to appear in all eight World Cup qualifiers. While Bellingham has juggled injuries and scrutiny, Rogers has quietly become the constant.

Injuries have not helped Bellingham’s cause. The 22-year-old missed two qualifiers last September with a shoulder problem. When October’s international camp came around – including a qualifier against Latvia – Tuchel left him out altogether. He rejoined the squad in November, only to sit out March’s friendlies with a persistent hamstring issue.

The story has not just been physical, though. The relationship between manager and star midfielder has been under the microscope from the moment Tuchel publicly tore into Bellingham’s behaviour during last June’s defeat to Senegal, describing it as “repulsive” before later apologising. The word stuck. So did the sense of tension.

In November, after Bellingham reacted angrily to being substituted in a qualifier against Albania, Tuchel went on record again, saying he would “review” the player’s behaviour. For a footballer used to being indulged and indulging the spotlight, the message from the new regime was clear: no one, not even Jude Bellingham, is untouchable.

Yet just as the narrative threatened to harden into a feud, Tampa offered a different picture.

In Saturday’s 1-0 World Cup warm-up win over New Zealand, Bellingham came off the bench at half-time and took the captain’s armband. The gesture was not accidental. Tuchel, who has never doubted Bellingham’s competitive edge, saw something he liked.

“You can see Jude has for sure the decisiveness and bite,” Tuchel said. “This is his key characteristic, but you can see that he comes from an injury and is full of energy and happy to be back on the pitch.

“He had his break, unfortunately, in a decisive part of the season, the Champions League season and campaign for the championship in Spain, so this was very unfortunate for Real Madrid and for him personally. But you can see now that he is actually in a sweet spot. He comes back, he’s fresh, he wants to play and he’s in top shape.”

The contrast is stark. A player once accused by his manager of “repulsive” on-field conduct now wearing the armband and being described as in a “sweet spot” on the eve of a World Cup. Tuchel has not softened his stance on standards, but he has clearly warmed to what Bellingham is showing him now: intensity without the theatrics, leadership without the drama.

Rogers’ rise, the expanded pool of “proper starters”, the tactical tweaks – all of it means Bellingham no longer walks into the team by reputation alone. He walks in if he is sharper, more disciplined, more effective than the others.

For a midfielder who has spent the last few years bending games to his will for club and country, that kind of challenge may be exactly what he craves. The question now is simple: in a squad where 15 players feel like starters, can Jude Bellingham make himself the one Tuchel cannot afford to leave out?