Jude Bellingham still faces a fight to make England's lineup at the World Cup, with Thomas Tuchel seeing the Real Madrid star as one of 14 or 15 potential starters.

The Three Lions beat New Zealand 1-0 in the first of their pre-World Cup friendlies on Saturday in Tampa, Florida, with Harry Kane on target.

Tuchel named a completely different starting XI for each half, with Bellingham wearing the captain's armband for the second period after replacing Morgan Rogers.

Bellingham only contributed to 15 goals in 46 appearances for Madrid in all competitions last season (nine goals, six assists), making it comfortably his worst campaign yet with Los Blancos (23 goals and 13 assists in 2023-24, 14 goals and 13 assists in 2024-25).

And, after missing the start of the season due to injury, Bellingham only started four of England's 2026 World Cup qualifiers.

Rogers, on the other hand, was one of three players to be involved in all eight, alongside Kane and Declan Rice.

Bellingham completed all 32 of his passes against New Zealand, 14 of which were in the final third, though he failed to create a chance for a team-mate after Rogers laid on two.

And when asked if Bellingham faced competition for his spot, Tuchel said: "Yes. 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 like 14 or 15 proper starters and Jude is one of them.

"He looks good. He looks good in training. I think he is in a sweet spot at the moment, because he has had his break and he has the hunger to be back on the pitch after injury."

England handed minutes to 22 different players against New Zealand, the first time they had done so in any fixture since June 2004 against Iceland, a 6-1 win in their final warm-up game before Euro 2004.

Touching on the competition in his group, Tuchel said: "I think the players want to impress and they want to impress me. That's why we selected this group.

"I feel they do it in a very complicit way. That's the spirit that we want to have and the spirit that we will need throughout the tournament.

"We don't want to have guys on the bench who are thinking, 'he is doing bad, so I may have a chance'. I don't think they play against each other, but they are happy to push each other. 

"I think they can put it into perspective. They know that they haven't played together, some of them, since November. Some of them came from holidays, they have to restart the engines. Put it into perspective – everything is fine."

Tuchel was then asked if Bellingham was part of England's leadership group for the World Cup, but he would only confirm that Arsenal midfielder Rice was his vice-captain.

"I never talk about the leadership group," he said. "Declan is my vice-captain. We had this talk when Harry was not in camp with us."

Tuchel has won 10 of his first 13 matches in charge of England, with only Glenn Hoddle (12) needing fewer games to reach double figures for victories in charge of the Three Lions (Fabio Capello and Walter Winterbottom also 13).

England face Costa Rica in their last public warm-up match on Wednesday, with a behind-closed-doors contest against Miami United also on the agenda before facing Croatia on June 17.