According to The Daily Telegraph, Tuchel displayed an unprecedentedly wounded demeanor before the bronze medal match. Although he firmly stated that he had no regrets and would not read the comments, his body language and mental state indicated that he had been hit hard.
This is a Tuchel unlike anything seen in English football before, neither during his time at Chelsea nor since taking over the England team. In his first public appearance after arriving in Miami, he looked like "a man in the eye of a storm," anxious, fiddling with his headphones, tangling wires, and appearing very uncomfortable. When asked if it was fair to be called a coward, he said, "I don't read praise, I don't believe praise, and I certainly don't believe such comments." When pressed about the opposition from English fans, he retorted, "Are you saying half of the English fans are against me? That's too absolute," refusing to accept a shift in public opinion.
Tuchel said he has had "many" painful experiences in his career, and this "won't be the last," but this blow is clearly deeper. He pointed out that Saturday's victory over France would be England's best World Cup result since 1966, but people remember that he was invited to "add a second star," not to finish third.
Tuchel once emotionally said at a team meeting that he wanted to "add stars" to England, but now he is emphasizing that the top four are "the expected level," that Spain, Argentina, and France "expect" to win the championship, and that England is only "hopeful." This is quite different from the original intention of the FA in hiring him.
If England loses to France and then to Spain in the Nations League, they will suffer a three-game losing streak, a feat England has not achieved since 2018. Gareth Southgate also wavered during his consecutive defeats to Hungary and Italy in 2022.
After half an hour of feigned bravery, Tuchel stopped explaining himself, left the room, and didn't even look back at the journalists who were still trying to understand England's elimination. Fans can at least be sure that Tuchel's pain was just as deep as theirs.
