Is Thomas Tuchel trying to rattle Bellingham?

0:02Nedum Onuoha:This is a global production. It wasn't too long ago where not one single Argentinian fan wanted Messi on the pitch. What he said is true, but did he have to say it there and in that manner? The result is fantastic. We're in the last four. It's amazing, but not happy with the performance. He will not take things lying down. He's not going to be defeated. He's got that kind of sense of, I mean, I want to go to battle with him, you know? You've scored two goals in a World Cup quarterfinal. How can this be anything other than a breeze? You, Gabby Logan, sound very green. You sound very, very green.

0:41Nedum Onuoha:Like, this isn't English football we're talking about. I can't get involved in this conversation, Gabby. I'm going to take myself out because my bias has kicked it. Lionel Scaloni said, we're not here to win the World Cup. We're here to defend it.

1:03Nedum Onuoha:Hello and welcome to the Sports Agents. Welcome, Nadam, just you and I today. Our chap is either getting himself acclimatised or is on his way to being acclimatised to do the semi-final. We are here. We're down to the final four. The four that FIFA wanted. The exact four that FIFA wanted. That ranking, as you say, from one to four before the tournament started, the separation of the bracket felt a little bit Tennessee. you thought oh no maybe it wouldn't work but they've gotten exactly what they wanted FIFA are having the time of their lives at this tournament you know talk about the star power oh the top scorers Mbappe it's messy the top four are in the semifinals like spend money on FIFA here we are Gabby here we are if I could buy shares in FIFA I would be a very rich woman it was again from England a night where you know something of a rear guard action they had to dig deep, they had to play dirty, it's been called, ugly.

2:02Nedum Onuoha:It was tense, it was nervous. But isn't it supposed to be like that when you get down to the final eight in a World Cup? I think so. I think something that I try and keep an eye on is measuring my expectations based on the comfort I'm watching a game from in my house versus basically the 40 degrees that they're playing in, in a World Cup quarterfinal against really, really good players. So you kind of want the performance and stuff to be better. but ultimately it's just by any means necessary and it wasn't the best version of England but they did show some of that grit, some of the determination they showed throughout the tournament, throughout most of their careers as well and I want to give credit to Norway to be honest because I thought in that 90 minutes I felt like they were the better side.

2:46Nedum Onuoha:Not that that matters but I felt like they were the better side. They felt like they were more comfortable in the moment whereas for England you weren't necessarily seeing the best of those players and it didn't really play up to their potential but as you've said like there's nerves there's tension these are moments that not many players will get a chance to feel to be in a knockout round in a World Cup to be this close to a final four so I get the stress I get the emotion been a long season as well for a lot of these players but yeah they got it done Gabby that's the most important thing isn't it?

3:14Nedum Onuoha:It is and there were moments where technology got involved obviously Norway's second first of all we see those kinds of incidents in the Premier League quite a lot don't we what did you what did you make of that um so this was one of the new uh rules or laws that came in before the tournament and i don't think from the games i've watched i'd not seen it be implemented yet so to see it being implemented this time on this sort of like stage where it can't just like be hidden in the background because it's like the second group game or whatever like it comes with real consequence and as is the case with some of the stuff that also happened that day in the Argentina Switzerland game it's kind of one of those weird rules of rules type situations to where the referees themselves couldn't leave it alone and it's unlucky from Haaland but you could probably say it's well done by Elliot Anderson to really sell the push because he's probably half his size future teammates, it's very easy to look like you've been thrown to the good I feel like he went down very naturally there was an element of shock on his face that he wasn't How strong is this guy?

4:22Nedum Onuoha:Yeah, exactly. What is this guy eating or lifting? Who is this? Oh, it's you. Yeah. So there was no real kind of sense at the end of the game that there was an injustice there for you. Not from that one, but we're going to get into the other one. Do you want to talk about the other one? Yeah. The Wiregate. The Bellingham Wire, yeah. Yeah, the Bellingham Wire. So in regards to this one, what I think is really interesting is FIFA came out the day after and showed the feed from the snickometer thing or whatever. And said, look, there was no, there was no sneak here. So there's no evidence to say that it happened.

4:56Nedum Onuoha:But then I was thinking, hmm, I feel like I've watched a video where something really strange happens within the game. And that video is the ball going towards two players who are probably 15 yards past the halfway line. And the ball dropping to Elliot Anderson basically on the halfway line. So something has happened, you know, like for them to say that there is no evidence. It's like, well, what are we looking at? Why did the ball do that? Why did the ball do that? We've seen footballs be kicked and we've seen just life exist for our entire lifetimes. And something strange has happened. And who I feel sorry for are the people who noticed it real time.

5:30Nedum Onuoha:Because speaking from my experience as a player, sometimes you see something happen and you're 100 % sure it's happened. And you can go to the person in power and say it and they're like, shut up, don't be ridiculous. Nothing's happened there. But it definitely did happen. And obviously they could have defended it better from then. But if we're going to go according to the rules, that should have been a re-kick. You should have been doing it again. And I think for them, there's going to be huge, huge disappointment because in that moment, you hope that they've got their eyes on everything. But then in some ways, I'm not surprised they missed it because it's one of those things which you just would never be looking for.

6:03Nedum Onuoha:No, there's so much now when you think about how kind of pure, let's go back to 66, shall we? England winning the World Cup in 66 to 60 years later, officiating the game of football. I mean the game is totally different but you imagine all the things that now have to be considered all the people that are involved in the decisions you know all the characters that play a part in how that game is governed it's it's a totally different game yeah it's a totally different game for not just the referee and like the quality of the pitches the way that games are played generally and so on and yes it's thankfully it's evolved slowly over time because if it was just one big leap all of a sudden one year I think we'd be quite concerned thinking it literally is a different game of football but yeah it's um I think it's tough I think from the first from the group phases I thought the refereeing was overall pretty good and then since it's gone into the knockouts maybe it's because there are fewer games but some of these decisions are starting to upset more people more often there's higher stakes as well yeah that's what it is yeah and and you know like I said before you can't really bury a game when there's only one game on in that day whereas previously it's like four games oh listen don't worry about this to the left there's another game coming up to the right and Leonor Messi's playing you know what I mean there's none of that anymore it's like this is this is it and I think the Norwegians themselves they're obviously hugely proud of how their team did overall throughout the tournament but then it leaves a bit of a sour taste when they believe that they've been wronged in this um in this quarterfinal as well we've avoided the words Jude and Bellingham because um he's going to play a big part in what we're going to talk about next um so immediately after the match England's performance was criticised by Thomas Tuchel in his post-match interview.

7:39Nedum Onuoha:And it was criticism that Jude Bellingham didn't necessarily agree with. Well, you've talked about your team's suffering before. Today, how do you sum up what the team have found? I didn't talk about suffering. I talked about, no, I never talked about suffering. We made life very, very difficult for ourselves today. The result is fantastic. We're in the last four. is amazing but not happy with the performance in what sense never since it was again the commitment is there but we made life very very difficult for us in the way we played how we played sloppy a lot of technical mistakes not fast enough uh not repetitive enough we were lucky today was that the occasion getting to the players i don't know it's just mentality thing nothing oh it's no mentality if you're not happy with the players this is pure mentality how can you ask about mentality now this is pure mentality it's not about no i mean when that when the players had the problem was that the mentality what was what was there's no mentality problem this is pure mentality this is pure mentality you can bottle it up and sell it this is yeah so why is the problem It's a quality of our games.

8:56Nedum Onuoha:That's it. The manager's actually not very happy. He said he was disappointed with the performance. There could have been more in many different ways. Yeah, well, whatever. Thomas has just been quite critical of the performance after the game. Does that show the standards that he expects, the standards you guys expect of each other, and maybe that there's more to come from the team? Maybe, but maybe he doesn't know what it's like to play in those kind of conditions against Erling Haaland, Odegaard, Neusser, Soloth. you know that's not an easy team to play against so um you know i think we've tried to create a positive environment we should continue that going into the the final four i can't speak highly enough for the lads you're not going to win every game popping the ball and making a thousand passes sometimes you have to win dirty and we've done that again tonight thomas tohul said after the gaming interviews that you were a tad lucky also to beat norway today what do you think about the statement from the boss no comment Nedim okay first of all I'm gonna um just say that I have done that job that Gabriel Clark has done right those post-match interviews in the in that environment and it's very emotional and obviously you're trying to you know kind of get the player to to respond to things that maybe you even haven't had time to think about yourself so so there might be a question mark around kind of how that was was phrased to to Jude Bellingham but let's just take Thomas Tuchel in isolation because that received a lot of praise didn't it from various quarters that he was honest about England's performance yeah do you know it received a lot of praise but I'm not on board with that to be honest I think um I think there are quite a few people that I see who are very very keen for him to be the success that they believe that he is before he'd even started because here's Thomas Tuchel somebody who you know had never managed international football before but then people when he got given the job were like yeah well this is the best appointment because of look at his cup win rate and i was like that's weird you know this he hasn't done it before so you don't really know yes he's obviously he's got his traits as a as a club manager some of the ruthlessness the success that he has and so on but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to translate and as a consequence like what he said is true but did he have to say it there and in that manner because ultimately after a game like that if you look around most countries most places there's a reading of like the room itself in terms of trying to give the message that you believe in at the right time and to the right people but for him essentially it feels like and obviously this could be wrong it feels like he gave that message to the players via the media almost or rather that's what Gabriel Gabriel Clark ended up doing say for Jude Bellingham so I'm not I'm not 100 % on board with it but looking at the full full interview the bit that sort of sticks out more to me is at the end where it says like, this is pure mentality.

11:40Nedum Onuoha:He's talking his points on the players. This is mentality. This is pure mentality. Like, I like that, you know, because he's sticking up for his players there. Because he was sticking up for them and that was slightly misinterpreted, wasn't it? In the way that he'd said it by Gabriel because he was kind of thinking that it was a mentality that wasn't present and where it should be. But actually he was saying this performance was a mentality. Yeah, 100%, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And that's right. And I think the criticism about the nature of the performance and stuff, like I think the way that he spoke about performance is the way a manager speaks about performance during a club season where there's going to be another game in seven days' time and you've picked up the three points and you're concerned about trends, this, that and the other.

12:18Nedum Onuoha:But like I said at the start, the whole thing with cup competitions is finding your way through it and the critique about the performance that he had. Like I just wouldn't have expected him to say it there. I just really wouldn't. Because picture this, for example, all that critique that he said, imagine like we saw the scenes after england won in mexico john stones with the shoulder the music play and all that stuff it's like really really good vibes yeah and that wasn't an incredible like performance per se relative to their expectations it's like the grit of it all imagine they go into the the dressing room afterwards and they're playing music again and the manager starts musing says hey listen boys i thought the performance today was a little bit off you weren't really connected in the past is this that and the other you want to talk about an absolute buzzkill that's what that's how that would have been received do you think he would have done that though no he wouldn't this is the thing he wouldn't yeah he just wouldn't i think he said that the next day or something so then when jude hears that and you can imagine the cold light of day he's thinking what whoa and his response which again has been phrased by other certain pundits roy keen loved it it was whatever you know i but do you think he knew in almost jude that doesn't matter because that's probably not what he meant and we're going to hear what he meant in the cold light of day very soon?

13:29Nedum Onuoha:Well, What would you think as a player? First things first, what I would say is that I think a lot of players, and I'm not speaking about Judea essentially, a lot of players respect managers that don't necessarily like managers or like everything that they say or do. You know, that was the case at City, I'm sure the case at United, and all this stuff. But I think from Jude's perspective, he's coming over to what should be a nice and easy interview. That's what he's perceiving it to be. But instead, he's just like, you're absolutely banged you've scored two goals in a world cup quarter final how can this be anything other than a breeze it's an absolute like layup it's a tapping it's whatever you want to say and then next thing he says well the manager's not too sure about that performance like how does how do you feel about that like he's he's taken aback but also when something's in front of a camera you know you don't necessarily have the time to pause and really think about your answer and there's so much emotion that's attached to it like he's exhausted it's another extra time game where he's given everything that he can.

14:27Nedum Onuoha:And he's, what I liked is that he pivoted to his teammates, you know, talked about the grit, the determination. He talks about the opposition and all those things are really fair. The fact that it's just about trying to get into the next round. And I think we saw that basically with every other team that made it through to the semifinals. Because after they won, they were celebrating in a manner as if, you know, they've almost won the thing itself. They weren't like, ah, you know, we won, but the performance was a bit so-so. It's like, we won. Yes, we've got another game. It's going to be at this day against this team potentially and so on so I think in some ways he was he was that much and like for for Gabriel the point that he tried to get across to get the reaction and so on I think in a different moment he could have he probably could have phrased it differently to get a better response from Jude and it's not to say that the journalists as you know yourself they don't have to be cheerleaders but you could also ask the question about how Tuchel says you know the performance wasn't great but he praised you guys for pure mentality how does that make you feel and then before you know it you'd find a more like rousing response as opposed to this theoretical like back and forth which they're involved in which for me just isn't real anyway.

15:30Nedum Onuoha:Yeah. Does it show us another side again though of Jude that has been appreciated by those who want to know that yes, he's not just this incredible PR machine in this World Cup. He's also still that kid who, you know, is, which we can see in his performance. I don't think we needed to see it in a post-match interview. He's the most warrior-like kind of winner mentality. you just see that kind of exuding from him, don't you? He will not take things lying down. He's not going to be defeated. He's got that kind of sense of, I mean, I want to go into battle with him, you know? He's giving me those vibes.

16:05Nedum Onuoha:Yeah, so I would have loved to have played with somebody like him. And yeah, he's very much representing like all the wishes and needs of the whole country. Like he wants England to win this World Cup and he'll do whatever it takes to do so. And in the way that he's speaking about it, like, yes, it's the coach. in fact you know Bellingham and Tuchel everything they said is correct it's not like it's two separate things because Bellingham never said that the technical part of the performance was great you know what I mean and Tuchel never said that there was no heart so they're basically saying the same thing or talking like a wider scale about the game but in slightly different ways and I think for Bellingham that raw emotion to be able to come forward to be sent forward actually to speak in in that instance and to say it to hold it but then as well he came back and said it again so it meant something to him that somebody's trying to be critical about what he thinks his teammates have just been through and done I like it I because he's representing those people that don't really have a voice and to speak in that manner I think that brings other players along with him even further on this journey I remember watching him in Qatar and thinking he is one day going to be an England captain and then what happened a couple of years ago when the whole kind of two-core relationship was very publicly kind of a bit messy for a while there you're thinking oh god i hope this doesn't go sour and if now at the point where i'm back to thinking he's a future women captain do you think he's a future women captain yeah i think so i think so i think um some of the critique that critics people had two years ago warranted or not they were having an issue they were trying to make issues about his personality and stuff and i can't really comment on that because i don't know the guy but i don't know anybody within that england group that has anything said anything negative about him and i think my bias is going to slip out here so i'm friends with jordan henderson and jordan henderson is really good friends with jude bellingham i don't think jordan would attach himself to somebody who is basically a villain within anything whatsoever so i um i think from that from those euros two years ago that then bled into like oh well tukul probably doesn't want him because he's disruptive to this and people's minds started to almost like go to a place that they wanted to the confirmation bias is just like dripping into their everyday thoughts about this England side.

18:16Nedum Onuoha:But in reality, like he's, he for me is the generational talent within this England side. And I think the fact that England have him, but there were still discussions about whether he should make the squad shows a level of almost like privilege and entitlement, which I have not seen before in football. Like he will, in my mind, be an England captain because you look at the way that he rouses the troops, look at the way that, say, especially at this tournament, the way the players talk about him, the way they're tweeting about him, putting stuff on Instagram about him. Like they adore him. And for him to be the third youngest player in the squad and to have that standing already, I think for me the path with good health is pretty clear that he will be the next captain.

18:53Nedum Onuoha:To be a player who at his age, as you say, has also scored a brace in consecutive knockout games in a World Cup for the first time since Maradona is remarkable. And when you consider at 23, he has a good 10 years of being a player who can perform at this level, you know, if he looks after himself, which there's no reason to believe he won't. You know, interestingly, so there was a question that got asked yesterday on another show and they were saying, what's his legacy like compared to like, he said Lampard, Gerrard, Beckhams and so on. And it said, has Jude already surpassed them? And I was like, I think he has.

19:31Nedum Onuoha:I genuinely think he has because in his sort of short career to this point, he's been one of the main men, if not the main man for England as they made a Euros final. and he's been the main man as they're now in a World Cup semi-final to where like the hopes of a nation are very much on his shoulders and he's doing it from midfield. And what's interesting as well, and I've only just had this thought, so I might not express it in the right way, is that he has done this for England through England only because to a lot of people who don't, you know, we're in a bubble, right? We watch all the European football, we know what's going on.

20:02Nedum Onuoha:He doesn't play Premier League football, hasn't been in this country since he was 16. A lot of people might cast an eye over what he did in the Bundesliga. they might kind of occasionally watch a little bit of European football but to them Jude Bellingham is England he's not Manchester United he's not Manchester City he's not got a... so you've got no kind of club bias with him which is quite interesting and very rare for a player of his age not to have had that Yeah it certainly is and in some ways it can work both ways it can work for and against him because I think to be in the distance just playing your own football is a positive given how much coverage there is around like the Premier League, the biggest players within it and so on and so forth.

20:40Nedum Onuoha:But then when you are to be judged based on what you're doing for England, a nation which hasn't necessarily been that successful in the decades, it then means that you're almost attached to possibly more failures than successes when things do start to go wrong. Because when it comes down to Real Madrid, you're talking about a Champions League winner and the like, and one of the stars of the whole thing. But with England, it's like, well, he was disruptive. I've heard he was disruptive at the last Euros. so that means that he's this that and the other but again for Real Madrid he's adored you know he's playing for the biggest football club in the world he's adored now though this in this whatever happens from now on he's now officially a national treasure isn't he you Gabby Logan sound very green you sound very very green like this isn't English football we're talking about because some of these people who've been knocked down from the pedestal were first put up there by the same people I think he's already been knocked down though I feel like this is his Lazarus moment I feel like he's coming out of that already.

21:35Nedum Onuoha:Gabby, Gabby, Gabby. The next pedestal will be higher. The next pedestal will be higher. And should he do something negative, which people like? Because for some of the people that didn't want him in the squad and didn't like him before the tournament, I don't think their minds are completely clear about this, as in they've been cleared about what they didn't like from before. They're almost waiting for it to happen again. And the moment it happens once, they'll be like, well, this is who he is. And then if you attach that to potentially a failure, then you know before you know it yeah this is the guy that's actually the yeah but then you look at I mean this is a dissertation you look at David Beckham's comeback after his Diego Simeone moment in the France World Cup and obviously you know people now would go people didn't like him once people hated him yeah people had effigies of him and they wanted to kill him and crucify him outside of Upton Park this is a guy who you know had to come through death threats but people kind of you know they forget that now because he's David Beckham who advertises 6 ,000 million products and sits in boxes with kings and queens, right?

22:31Nedum Onuoha:So they'd forget all of that. So I think, you know, you transcend, don't you? You transcend the sport eventually. And then you can have, I mean, as David Beckham has in the last 25, 30 years, you can have PR slips occasionally. Yeah, you potentially can. What I would say is I'm not Beckham trufer anymore. I've seen too many adverts. I can't get involved in this conversation, Kevin. I'm going to take myself out because my bias has kicked in. A quick reminder that you can catch up with all previous episodes on YouTube, Global Player, or wherever you get your podcasts. And make sure you subscribe or follow and leave a review while you're there.

23:04Nedum Onuoha:England's win against Norway then sets up a box office semifinal against Argentina, who, like England, were made to suffer in their quarterfinal against Switzerland. And after the break, CBS and Fox Sports South American football writer Luis Miguel Echegaray joins us to chat all about that.

23:28Nedum Onuoha:Luis, great to have you back on the podcast and to talk a little bit about Argentina. We're all talking about Argentina now, looking forward to Wednesday night. Their performance against Switzerland did have parallels with England against Norway, didn't it? It absolutely did. I know that the Argentinian community was not happy on the pitch from what they saw. They were obviously happy about the outcome and the fact that once again, there in the semifinals, Gabby, but it's spot on. There's a parallel to what England had to go through. I will say, though, that the struggles of Argentina have long gone before the Switzerland match.

24:05I actually have not been that impressed with La Luis Celeste during this World Cup. And to be fair, England's journey to get here has been much harder. Let's talk about the fact that they had to be at the Azteca, of course, Norway and Argentina. You know, when you looked on paper, was a much more doable group. Lionel Messi didn't even play in the last match of the group stages. So there's definitely issues here. And I think part of it is because they're the defending World Cup champions, right? They're meant to show who they are. And to this point, there's been a lot of Messi dependency, I think.

24:39A lot of dependency on Messi. Something that Lionel Scaloni wanted to totally get rid of. But we've seen it over and over. But hey, regardless, Argentinians also won't care one iota because they are in the semifinals of the World Cup, of course.

24:52Nedum Onuoha:A lot of people are saying that England are favourites for this game against Argentina, which feels really strange anyway. But do you think that is justified? No, Nadam, I think it is justified. I think on paper, I think England should look at this team that they're facing, and on paper, and I keep saying on paper, I want that to be the headline, on paper, England should look at this Argentina side and think, we can take them. There's a disconnect. there's also an aging situation here when you look at their back line you know from Tagliafico and Guti Romero and Licho Martinez like there is definitely a disconnect and sort of a process of they're not as good as they were in 2022 I mean how could they be they're a little bit older of course but the midfield aside from the last match Alexis McAllister has not impressed me and so Fernandez did individual moments in the last few matches but he has not impressed me And Lionel Messi, for his own incredible regard, was also a little bit quiet in the last match.

25:47Also, let's remember that it was 1-0 against Switzerland until that red card. So, you know, I think that there's a situation here that England, who have gone through the absolute ringer, as I mentioned earlier, I think they can look at this match and think, we can take it. The only issue, Natum, is that England's biggest enemy is England itself. And they have to mentally really prepare for this side against Argentina. because if Argentina have one thing that every nation absolutely wishes they had is that still-minded mentality that no matter what, we're going to get that win. And I think that many nations are jealous of that.

26:20Nedum Onuoha:Well, that still-minded mentality, that's what Scaloni was speaking about after the game. Like, how do you think the two coaches compare to each other when for Tuchel, obviously you gave the England team praise to a certain extent, but also gave them criticism out in the open. Which approach do you think is more significant and which manager is probably in a better position with their side going into the semifinal? Yeah, what a great question. And it's complex because actually the answer lies within of the squads that they're taking care of. You have to remember something. Lionel Scaloni, before being the senior international team manager, he was the assistant to Sampaoli.

26:54He's worked with the youth team. And even though his playing career wasn't as deep from a managerial perspective, from the culture within the setup of Argentina, he's been there. He's done it. He understands it, right? So to him, this team is kind of like a fraternity. It's a brotherhood. And he wants to embellish that and protect it. So the other component about this, by the way, guys, is that at the beginning of the tournament, something that continues to stick with me throughout. Lionel Scaloni said, we're not here to win the World Cup. We're here to defend it. And I've kept reminding myself of why he said that.

27:31Because to me, that's about protection, as opposed to being proactive and going for it. And when you talk about protection, that's what you're doing. You're protecting your team from everything else. It was a wonderful moment in that Switzerland match where I think it was a hydration break. It could have been the break before extra time where he's having a really deep conversation with Leandro Paredes. And Paredes is literally explaining to him what's going on in the midfield and the pitch and why things need to be adjusted. And Scaloni is listening to him. He's like absolutely taking it all in.

28:03He's saying, OK, OK, yeah, maybe we do this. I don't know if Thomas Tuchel would do the same thing on the England side. However, there is a parallel, I think, between Scaloni and Tuchel where they have earned the trust of their players. That's why I think it's a complete nothing burger of Thomas Tuchel to say that he wasn't happy with the performance. Of course he wasn't. He's German. He's a pragmatist. He wants to have an absolute perfection of a performance. Even though they got the result they wanted, it wasn't the performance they wanted. And Jude Bellingham was like, yeah, whatever, because they trust him.

28:33So that's the parallel between both, I think, that they have trust of the players in mind. It's just that Scaloni has a much deeper connection because he's been there from the very, very beginning.

28:44Nedum Onuoha:I also think, Luis Miguel, when he says that, Thomas Tuchel, and we've had a good chat about this, and Nadim pointed out that that would be a style of communication in club management that would be much more normal to say things like that because you've got a week then to build on it. He's also telling his team, you can play better than this. I know you, I've seen you, I've seen you on the training pitch. You're so much better. So there's a real kind of sense of belief. It's like a parent saying, I'm disappointed in you, you know, when you've done something wrong. It's like, you know what? I thought you were better than this and you can be better than this.

29:14Nedum Onuoha:And maybe he knows the way to press the buttons of the players that he's with. And that for him is a communication tool that works with them, right? And Scaloni equally knows the communication that works with his players. Yeah, spot on. Spot on, Gabby. And I think also remember, I mean, that's what Harry Kane said, right? He's like, listen, he knows that we can do so much better, and we can. And he's right. Obviously, the conditions were tough, the humidity, Norway, etc. But Thomas Tuchel expects perfection. I mean, a reminder that England, obviously, they know this. It's not a shock here that they haven't won a major trophy since 1966.

29:49So he's expecting perfection in order to make it happen. The other thing I'll say is that the Tuchel style of management, which Natum alludes to regarding the club management, is really also spot on. because this reminds me a lot of what Tuchel did when he arrived to Chelsea. And he took over Frank Lampard. And it was a very disconnected team. And he began to completely change little things, both in training and in trust within players. I remember reading a piece from our friend Jules Laurent saying how the midfield with Kovacic and N 'Golo Kante and Jorginho, he talked to them individually, meeting by meeting, saying, I may not start all of you at the same time, but I'm going to need you to do A, B, and C.

30:28and they trusted him. And I see the same thing here with the England team. He's like completely creating a situation where every single player knows exactly what they need to do. And if they don't do it, he won't be happy. Scaloni is exactly the same way, but in a different manner, because he's already been there. They've won the World Cup, right? So he needs to tell his team, look, we can do this again. You just need to trust yourselves and defend this title as opposed to try and be super proactive or reactive to things when they go wrong so there's well being a player