England manager Thomas Tuchel feels morale in the squad is ‘fine’ as they continue preparations for their opening match of the 2026 World Cup against Croatia on June 17.
Anticipation is building ahead of Thursday’s opening match between Mexico and South Africa – and Tuchel’s Three Lions registered an underwhelming 1-0 friendly win over New Zealand at the weekend, when captain Harry Kane scored the only goal of the game.
Tuchel tinkered with his team selection against the Kiwis, fielding two separate XIs in each half, but he is confident the England squad are all pulling in the same direction.
Top Gunners in camp
The Arsenal contingent of Declan Rice – who has been named England vice-captain – Bukayo Saka, Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke have now joined the squad in their West Palm Beach camp after getting some time to recover from their Champions League final defeat to PSG.
And Tuchel says he has yet to decide how much involvement they will have in the friendly against Costa Rica in Orlando on Wednesday.
“I think we will get bigger chunks of minutes because it’s just the build-up,” he told Sky Sports.
“Then we have six days after that to prepare for Croatia. I think we need some players to play 60-70 minutes.
“We have three training days, one more match behind closed doors to manage all the minutes.
“Because let’s say someone plays 70 minutes against Costa Rica, someone else only plays 20. So this is not enough.
“Those players who only play 20 or 30 minutes will play in that next game again.”
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Players keen to impress
Tuchel took the reins from Sir Gareth Southgate and feels happy with the balance of the squad he has selected – and the mood within it.
The former Chelsea boss added: “I think the players want to impress and they want to impress me. That’s why we selected this group.
“I feel they do it in a very complicit way. That’s the spirit that we want to have and the spirit that we will need throughout the tournament.
“We don’t want to have guys on the bench who are thinking, ‘he is doing bad, so I may have a chance.’
“So I don’t think that they think that they play against each other, but they are happy to push. I think they can put it into perspective.
“They know that they haven’t played together in some of them since November.
“Some of them come from holiday, restart the engines.
“Put it into perspective – everything is fine.”
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Michael Davey