Thomas Tuchel has admitted that he still does not know his starting lineup for England's World Cup opener against Croatia, which is now less than a week away. The Three Lions begin their Group L campaign in Arlington next Wednesday, yet the head coach says he still has some tough selection calls to make.
Warm-Up Victory and Selection Dilemmas
England beat Costa Rica 3-0 in their final pre-tournament warm-up game on Wednesday. Declan Rice, Anthony Gordon, and Ollie Watkins scored at Inter&Co Stadium in Orlando after thunderstorms delayed kick-off by an hour. Some positions, such as left wing, centre-back, and No.10, appear less clear-cut than others when it comes to who will start against Croatia.
Asked whether he already knows his XI for that curtain-raiser, Tuchel told ITV after the win over Costa Rica: “No. I will have to find now an XI for tomorrow’s game. And then I have another six days, I think.”
Behind-Closed-Doors Training Match
On Thursday, England face amateur American side Miami United in an unofficial behind-closed-doors training game. Players less heavily involved against Costa Rica will run through set-pieces and other in-game situations. The match will be stop-start. “We do a match tomorrow, another friendly match to get some minutes into the legs of the players who didn’t play so much today,” Tuchel added.
“And then the players get one-and-a-half days off, to switch off physically and mentally. Then we go to Kansas City and prepare for Croatia.”
Performance Review
Reflecting on the performance against Costa Rica, which came after Saturday’s tougher 1-0 victory over New Zealand in Tampa, Tuchel said: “We did very well, and we deserved to win. We should have had more goals. We could have easily scored more, we created a lot. But the attitude, the energy, the intensity was on a very high level.
“Everyone did well. It is not about one individual player today. A very good team performance and we want to have this push to the next level, and we clearly got it. We worked hard, counter-pressing was good, and togetherness. Everything on a very, very high level.
“Tonight makes my mind very calm as we're absolutely on the right way. The guys who came in were super-influential. The guys who came out were pushing from behind on the bench. It was exactly what we wanted.”
