Thomas Tuchel responds to President Trump’s surprise Harry Kane claim

Thomas Tuchel has responded to United States president Donald Trump’s criticism of Harry Kane’s deployment against Argentina.

The England head coach has come under fire for his tactics after they took the lead in their World Cup semi-final on Wednesday night.

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Anthony Gordon put the Three Lions ahead but Argentina came from behind to win 2-1 and reach a second consecutive final.

Fans and pundits believe that Tuchel played too defensively following the opener and made the wrong changes, although these have been supported with brilliant analysis on talkSPORT.

Now Trump has given his two cents on the debate, questioning why striker Kane played a more defensive role during the latter stages.

“You have a great player in England, who I played golf with, you know that, right?” he said at a FIFA reception on Friday.

“Harry, who’s been fantastic. I think they perhaps made a mistake when they made him a defensive player.

“What do I know about soccer? They took the lead, and they took their best player and put him on defence.

“We have got to be a little offensive, right? But no I’m not going to call it. What do I know about coaching?

“It was unusual, but Harry is a great guy, actually.”

Tuchel responds

Tuchel refused to rise to the bait, though, insisting the President answered his own questions by stating he doesn’t know about coaching.

“President Trump weighed in and said in his message that he doesn’t know anything about coaching and I think he proved the point. That’s basically it. I just know about the criticism because I get messages from friends and people who actually loved the English team watching.

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“They are worried. so I never read praise and I never read criticism. It just does not make sense. I try to help my team and try to do this on a daily basis on the highest level.

“I did this in the match because I trusted my instinct, I trusted my intuition, I trusted my experience and I trusted my competitiveness and the analysing of the match. So I took some decisions. If you lose, they are all wrong. That’s just the nature of it.

“That’s the nature of the world in sports. The game is more complex than offensive and defensive. The game is more complex than just the structure and that means that you are defending and another structure you are attacking. So that’s just something I have to accept and I will not engage in it.”

What next for Tuchel?

Amid the World Cup disappointment, some called for Tuchel to be dismissed from his role as head coach.

However, talkSPORT understands that Football Association have no plans to sack him, despite a performance clause included in his deal.

Tuchel has a contract that sees him through to Euro 2028 and looks set to remain in the job until then.

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The former Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea and Bayern Munich boss spoke to the media ahead of the third place match against France.

He was asked about the criticism he has faced, as well as what Trump had to say on his perceived decision-making with Kane.

“Do you use Donald Trump as your witness for the case, or… I was just asking,” Tuchel responded.

“In which situation did Harry play too deep? What do you mean? Like in the last 30 minutes?” he said on the England captain. “Well, we defended in a deep block.

“That’s what you do if you defend in a block. You defend in a block. We were not active enough, we could not escape the deep block but if you defend in a deep block, everyone defends in a deep block.

“That is what team spirit, togetherness, and mentality is translated to in football terms. We defend as a as a 10 and as 11, and if we are pushed back to a deep block, Harry defends in a deep block.

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“This is what he did for moments in the first half. The difference is that we pushed back and we stepped out and we found the triggers to come out of the deep block. But we do everything together as a team.

“The team spirit, the togetherness, the mentality that this team built in the last six and a half weeks is not to be questioned and it showed even in defending.

“We became too passive in the last 30 minutes. We could not get hold of the ball, we could not find duels anymore. This is the next step that we want to take and from there we go.”

England will hope to end their World Cup campaign on a high with a win over France tonight, live on talkSPORT.

Then on Sunday, Spain take on Argentina in the World Cup final.