The Manchester United star revealed on Thursday (21.05.26) that he was "shocked and gutted" not to be included in the 26-man squad, which wasn't officially announced until the morning after his public statement on Instagram.
Speaking to reporters after unveiling his squad, the England boss said: "I was a bit surprised, but I respect his personality a lot, I respect his quality a lot. He has had an outstanding season, I can see the disappointment, I can see the reason behind the disappointment.
"Still I was a bit surprised because we had a private conversation and he had the chance to express his feelings which he did and this is fair enough because I can see all the reasons why he could be in the squad.
"But, the decision is that we stood firmly with our central defenders that carried us through September, October and November. Some of them are part of the leadership group that took ownership and set the standards high.
"It was a decision for these 26 players, even if it feels against individuals."
Maguire was one of several high profile names to miss out on a place, including Manchester City's Phil Foden, Chelsea star Cole Palmer, and Nottingham Forest's Morgan Gibbs-White.
In a public message to the players who didn't get picked, Tuchel said: "I tried to show my respect and appreciation for what they have done, in telling them in person or phone calls in the last three days about my decision.
"So I called every player that was at least once with us, personally, to tell them my decision, even if it was a painful decision or it was a disappointing message.
"We believe it has to be delivered from me, I will not go into details of course but I tried to explain and express my appreciation and respect for the player."
However, Tuchel insisted he doesn't "fear" leaving world class talents out of the squad because of his confidence in the group he's selected.
He said: "Very difficult decisions, painful conversations. Difficult for the players, difficult to explain to the players.
"What we’re trying to achieve as a team and we try to nominate a balanced squad. If everyone is selected, it was a given that from these 55 players, we have to leave some extraordinary talents, some extraordinary personalities at home.
"Either way, if we picked all those names, some other big five names would have been out and we would be talking about these names. It comes with the job.
"I like these kinds of decisions, even if it sometimes took weeks and sometimes, months to clarify the decisions. I think they bring clarity. At the end, they bring a certain edge that is necessary."
He noted that for some players, it was simply a case of having a wealth of options in certain areas of the pitch.
He added: "I try to explain for the players the reason they could be in camp. Did they do anything wrong? No. Could they be in camp? Yes. 100 percent sure. But for some of them, it is just the amount of players in a certain position.
"We didn’t want to play the players out of position so much and we wanted to give them a clear role and it comes with difficult and maybe hard choices in the build up to the tournament."
