Jude Bellingham fails to regain England squad place as Tuchel gives ‘no guarantees’ for star players

Jude Bellingham failed on Friday to regain his place in England’s squad after returning from injury, with Thomas Tuchel stressing the need to maintain a strong team spirit in the camp and saying there are “no guarantees” for his superstar players.

Head coach Tuchel chose to pick largely the same squad that collected World Cup qualifying wins over Andorra and Serbia last month, explaining that those players had “set the standard” — especially with a 5-0 win in Belgrade — and deserved to be given another chance.

That meant no recall for midfielder Bellingham, who has featured in Real Madrid’s last four games after around two months out following shoulder surgery, or Phil Foden, who has rediscovered his form at Manchester City.

There was extra scrutiny on the decision to leave out Bellingham, for a couple of reasons.

On Wednesday, he was voted by supporters as England Player of the Year for the 2024-25 campaign, after coming up with some big moments during the team’s run to the European Championship final last year — notably the late equalizer with an overhead kick against Slovakia in the last 16.

And in August, Tuchel said he had apologized to Bellingham for saying the midfielder’s behavior “can be a bit repulsive” and that there was “no message, no hidden agenda” behind his comment.

Tuchel said Friday there was no personal issue between him and Bellingham — or between him and Foden — and added “the competition is on” to make it in the squad for England’s likely appearance in next year’s World Cup.

“I understand your focus on Jude,” Tuchel told reporters when faced with a barrage of questions about the omission of one of the world’s most high-profile players. “He is a very special player and for special players, there can always be special rules.

“I get this but, for this camp, we decided to stick with our straightforward decision to invite the same team. That applies also for Jude.”

Tuchel, who confirmed that Bellingham wanted to be called up, said an added reason for leaving him out was because he had yet to play a full match for Madrid since his return from injury. He has only started one of the four games he has played in.

“He is at the moment in the period where he gets his rhythm, gets back to full strength,” Tuchel said. “There is this extra layer into this decision but the decision stayed for this camp.”

However, Tuchel repeatedly pointed out that the players currently in the squad deserved to be there and were in pole position to stay there for future camps, should they retain the unity and performance from last month. It is “100% there are no guarantees” for any player to be in the squad, he said.

“It’s a change in our selection — it’s World Cup year,” Tuchel said. “We’ve selected a lot of players — 35, 36 — in the first two camps. It was a learning from me and we reached a new level, new standards for ourselves in the last camp. I think it was clearly visible in the match in Serbia to our fans and to us in the way we played and the way we won.

“The question is, why not pick the same players if they are available? They have to prove it again. The pressure is on the players who want to be in camp, the pressure is always on the guys who are selected. They set the standards, now they have to make sure these standards become more stable. This is the chance they have.”

England hosts neighbor Wales in a friendly at Wembley Stadium on Thursday before travelling for a World Cup qualifier in Latvia five days later.

England has won the first five of its eight qualifying games in Group K and is seven points clear of second-place Albania.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer