‘I wished for that’: Tuchel insists England are ready for World Cup after warm-up stroll

Thomas Tuchel said that England are ready for the World Cup after cruising to an impressive 3-0 victory over Costa Rica in Orlando.

England side dealt with storms delaying kick-off for an hour at the Inter & Co Stadium and looked in excellent condition as they secured victory in their final warm-up game with goals from Declan Rice, Anthony Gordon and Ollie Watkins. There was also an impressive performance from Jude Bellingham, placing him in contention to start against Croatia in Dallas next Wednesday, and Tuchel feels his side are in a good place before their opening game in Group L.

“I wished for that, I demanded that; I said before the match we want to push it to the next level, from intensity, commitment, cohesion, and we did that,” the head coach said. “We could see the impact of the Arsenal players coming into camp and we could see the impact of training.

“We see the adaptation to the heat and we see things clicking, but we demanded it today from the players to take the next step and they did. The result takes care of itself, but we did it on a high level.

“I think we set the tone today in the meeting and the players were ready to follow, to have the next step in intensity and the way we play, to push ourselves and get a good feeling out of it. The energy in the stadium was amazing. I thought: ‘OK, if we can really play like this and grow into the tournament and have this kind of cohesion and brotherhood and team spirit that we showed today, then we will have an amazing connection with the fans.’”

Bellingham was given an opportunity to start over Morgan Rogers at No 10 and his quality on the ball was matched by his workrate without it. The midfielder combined well with Harry Kane, Elliot Anderson and Rice.

“We trained a lot of offensive solutions, but we made it very clear that the DNA of us is also off the ball,” Tuchel said. “The work rate gives us a good feeling and intensity, and we can impose ourselves on the opponent, and the movement is up front and not running backwards.

“That made us strong in qualification football. I wanted to see Jude in the combination today for the first time with Harry, Elliot and Declan at the centre of the game. I know what Morgan gives us there, I just saw it so many times. It was the first time for Jude, and he buys into these ideas. He has to and he loves to do it, and that’s part of our game.”

England face Miami United in a behind-closed-doors game on Thursday. They leave Florida and head to their tournament base in Kansas City on Saturday.

“The team did a lot to get the energy going,” Tuchel said. “It was good for us to have a bit of a delay so we could adapt to that and see if it affects us.”

Click here to read article