Thomas Tuchel was effusive in his praise of England captain Harry Kane and No 10 Jude Bellingham after the pair helped the Three Lions to victory in their World Cup opener with Croatia.
Kane struck twice in the first half and Bellingham fired home early in the second before Marcus Rashford capped a 4-2 win in Dallas.
Kane's double took him level with Gary Lineker as England's record World Cup goalscorer on 10 strikes but Tuchel pointed out a late block in his own box on a Josko Gvardiol shot summed up the striker's performance.
"If you see the commitment of our captain, of our No 9 in the extra time, to block a crucial shot after a set-piece with all his body and his commitment to buy into a defensive action like this then you know everything about his performance today," said Tuchel.
"A complete performance. Absolute leader. He's all in. Physically, mentally. It's the full package at the moment. He wants it and he leads by example, so we're very happy."
After the best goalscoring season of his career, Kane was nailed on for a start in Texas but Bellingham had been in a running battle with his good friend Morgan Rogers to take on the attacking midfield role.
In the end, while Tuchel admitted it was hard to leave out Rogers, Bellingham rose to the occasion as expected.
Tuchel also made a point of noting Bellingham's teamwork, having previously been critical of the Real Madrid star.
"You can rely on Jude in these moments. He loves these pressure games. That brings out the best in him," said Tuchel.
"It's an easy decision to let him play and trust him, also because of the last 17 days how he bought into the idea of team spirit, the idea of brotherhood and the idea of how we want to play football which is a slightly different position to his position in Real Madrid.
"The tough decision was to say to Morgan Rogers he will not start because he deserves 100 per cent to start and he did ever so well for us and me.
"Jude was very reliable and did his very best to be a top team player for us.
"We do this as a team. The team and every player is ready to do it as a team. We can just do it together as a group if we want to push it all the way and today was a very good first step."
Tuchel also had a message for Rashford after his late goal, urging the winger to maintain his hunger.
Rashford was rejuvenated on loan at Barcelona in the second half of the season but had scored just once for England in his past 15 appearances for his country until he came on as a sub for Anthony Gordon on Wednesday.
"Harry is in excellent shape. Jude is in excellent shape. Marcus is pushing and pushing and pushing and training on the highest level," said Tuchel when asked about his goalscorers.
"I'm very happy for [Rashford] that he got this relief and I hope he stays hungry for the next one and the next one because he was absolutely impressive through the last 17 days and really deserved his goal."
Tuchel added: "We had a talk yesterday, where I told him I was very impressed with how he was in camp, how he pushes on the field.
"He's totally invested in every meeting, he's very fast in translating a meeting onto the pitch what we want tactically, he pushes on a respectful level with Anthony Gordon on the position.
"At the moment he's in a very good place.
"I was so happy he was the one to unlock this long spell where he was not decisive for us from within the game and hopefully he can keep this up."
