PRAGUE -- England coach Thomas Tuchel said Jude Bellingham could one day become the national team's permanent captain.
The 23-year-old was introduced as a 71st-minute substitute for Harry Kane during Tuesday's 2-0 win over Czechia and immediately took the armband to finish the game, just as he did when the Bayern Munich forward was withdrawn against Spain late on last weekend.
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Bellingham also briefly skippered the side in June's World Cup warm-up win over Costa Rica and, when asked whether he could one day lead his country on a regular basis, Tuchel said: "If you are the captain at the end of these matches you can for sure be the permanent captain.
"I think he loves to be with us at the moment, that's what I feel. We had this small talk today about his role and we both had our stomachs said 'let's go again, let's start again.' And then both our heads said 'maybe 30 minutes is enough for today' because he hasn't played this quick turnaround through this season.
"He has done it before but not in the season so we didn't want to be the first ones to try that. But even in this little encounter, you can see he is confident and happy to even help from the bench.
"So, yeah, it is a reward [to give him the captaincy]. It is good. He had a little niggle at the end of the match, hopefully it is nothing serious and he is available for Croatia."
Kane remains England's regular skipper but vice-captain Declan Rice is sidelined due to load management during an international break in which England got back on track with a routine win over ten-man Czechia at Fortuna Arena.
The hosts started brightly and capitalised on some early England errors to threaten an opening goal before Morgan Rogers hit the post with a smart effort on the turn.
The game changed dramatically when Pavel Sulc was sent off following a VAR review after 25 minutes for a late tackle on Elliot Anderson.
England broke the deadlock two minutes into the second half as Trent Alexander-Arnold -- making his first international start in almost two years -- crossed superbly for Anthony Gordon to head into the net.
Kane scored his 87th international goal on 69 minutes to seal the points on a night where England got their Nations League campaign back on track without any great fanfare.
"I love sometimes these unglamorous results so you have a relaxed evening," Tuchel said. "It cannot be always glamourous and super exciting. You have to sometimes do the hard work with not a lot of praise because we were the favourites, we demanded the win from us, you go up with one man of course and everyone expects, me, ourselves, you are suddenly the heavy favourites.
"That's why we didn't panic but we needed to play with a bit more urgency, dynamic movements on the side, counter-pressing was on a high level so we kept the man-man approach in the opponents' half.
"It was there until maybe the last 10 minutes when we got a little bit tired and a little bit sloppy but that's also what builds character. If you go to Czechia, play in an away stadium -- they have never lost back-to-back matches at home -- and you just do it, and we do it with a clean sheet. It is good."