England manager Thomas Tuchel made a light-hearted remark about his past apology to Erling Haaland, but stressed that stopping the prolific striker is a top priority ahead of Saturday's World Cup quarter-final against Norway in Miami.
Tuchel, who won the Champions League with Chelsea in 2021, was reminded of being named Coach of the Year by German newspaper Bild. After that success, he publicly expressed a desire to sign Haaland from Borussia Dortmund, later apologising for the comments. Haaland joined Manchester City a year later.
“I always need to apologise,” Tuchel said with a smile. “They don’t get my humour! Anyway, were you surprised that Bild gave me an award? Yeah… there was no way out. Because if Jurgen Klopp won at the same time the Charity Shield they give it to him…”
Haaland's World Cup form
Haaland has already scored seven goals in this World Cup, making him the tournament's top scorer. Tuchel acknowledged the threat but insisted Norway have other dangerous players, though the “full focus” of his defenders will be on Haaland.
“You can’t avoid focusing, for sure not. There is so much quality in these moments and you have to make decisions, how to defend it. He will always arrive on the second post,” Tuchel said.
“The whole world knows it – he loves to arrive on the second post so the question is when to make contact with him. It’s also a type of defender type of thing.
“Some defenders like to stay zonal and get the earlier jump, some defenders like to step back and start fighting with him on the ground physically – but then he pushes you maybe aside and gets a free header.
“If you stay zonal he jumps over you. So he has all the weapons once you arrive in the box. There are of course ways to make life hard for him when he starts accelerating and when they play long balls.
“Because Norway are not shy to play long balls in to (Alexander) Sorloth and he starts bullying people, that’s what he does. So it’s a team effort but of course the full focus of our central defenders will be on him (Haaland).”
Heat preparation in Miami
Weather forecasts predict a potential rain storm and temperatures above 32 degrees Celsius for the match in Miami. It will be England's first encounter with such heat in the tournament, having played in rain in Mexico City and in an air-conditioned stadium in Atlanta.
Tuchel believes their preparation and research will give England a “slight edge” over Norway. “Science says that we banked a lot of heat training. That will help us,” he said.
“This week, today, we spent quite some minutes in the heat and then we will go from there. Subjectively, for me, it's always like 'can you really prepare for that?'
“We knew when we stepped out of the plane in Miami, we expected it to feel painful. Maybe we are still lucky and we get another dark cloud over the stadium! And full rain. It was like this.
“But everything we did, how we trained, where we trained, when we started this journey together in America, was to prepare. That's what science says. So hopefully it gives us a slight edge. We haven't lost it because we banked it in the heat training sessions.
“But the games of course, like you said, they were indoor or, in Mexico it was quite chilly actually, no-one could foresee that. Now, the forecast is that it will be a tough one. But for our opponents as well.”
Enjoying the Miami experience
Tuchel hopes England will enjoy Miami as much as they did Mexico City. “I was heavily in love with this experience in Mexico, to change country, to fly into such a football country, such an emotional country.
“Training on this training ground was very special and playing in the Azteca and having a match like this was really the full package of an experience.”
