England manager Thomas Tuchel clashed with a journalist after his side's 2-1 extra-time quarter-final victory over Norway in Miami on Saturday.
The German coach had a tense exchange with ITV reporter Gabriel Clarke, who questioned England's mentality and suggested the team continued to "suffer" despite progressing.
"I didn't talk about suffering," Tuchel corrected Clarke. "I never talked about suffering.
"We made life very difficult for ourselves today. The result is amazing, but I'm not happy with the performance."
When asked what disappointed him most, Tuchel replied:"The commitment is there, but we made life very, very difficult for ourselves in the way we played. Sloppy, tactical mistakes, not fast enough, not repetitive enough. We were lucky."
Clarke then asked whether England's drop in performance was a mentality issue, prompting Tuchel to respond:"I don't know. It's not mentality. This is pure mentality now! It's not about mentality.
"There's no mentality problem. This is pure mentality—you could bottle it up and sell it. It's a quality of our game. It has nothing to do with mentality."
England booked only their fourth World Cup semi-final after coming from behind to beat Erling Haaland's Norway. Jude Bellingham scored the equaliser just before half-time before netting the winner in extra time.