In a separate interview with BBC Sport, the Bayern Munich striker added: “The boss said at half-time to up the tempo, go man for man and completely take the game to them, and that is exactly what happened.
“You saw us at our best level, both with and without the ball and we could have scored three or four goals in that 20-minute spell in the second half.”
Speaking to ITV at half-time, Tuchel’s assistant Anthony Barry described the first half display as “fearful”.
“Overall, a complicated and confusing first half from us, really,” said Barry.
“A lot of nervous energy early on. I think that’s accepted and maybe expected in the opening game of a World Cup.
“From there, then we made some decisions where the energy was not free in our minds. Playing long when we should play short, playing short when we should play long really, not playing through the gaps, not allowing us to accelerate our game the way we wanted to.
“You’d think the penalty would free us up, allow us to play more like us, to be ourselves, but again we fell back into some fearful patterns.”
Asked what he said to his team at half-time, Tuchel told ITV: “Even if we lose, it will not change my perception of the last 17 days, but let’s do it our way.
“We were too focused on protecting the result. We were a back seven and we didn’t defend. If the result doesn’t go our way, we want to play our way.
“I tried to encourage them to go for it.”
The half-time team talk seemed to have an almost immediate impact as Bellingham scored within two minutes of the restart to put England 3-2 ahead.
The Real Madrid midfielder told ITV: “It wasn’t one of those where it was a big drama or standing up and shouting; it was what the team needed.
“We have a mature group with great leaders in there. Everyone knew the level we had to get to. The start of the second half gave us a great platform.”
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