England’s camaraderie, quality and adaptability in the weather-affected warm-up friendly against Costa Rica has only increased Thomas Tuchel’s excitement for his first World Cup.
After a thunderstorm delayed kick-off by an hour in Orlando, the Euro 2024 runners-up heeded their manager’s request to take things up a notch ahead of next Wednesday’s Group L opener against Croatia.
Declan Rice, Anthony Gordon and substitute Ollie Watkins scored in an impressive final performance before their World Cup adventure begins, with Costa Rica fortunate to escape with a 3-0 defeat.
Boss Tuchel loved what he saw from the group, who kicked on from Saturday’s 1-0 workout against New Zealand in Tampa as their Florida warm-weather training camp comes to a close.
“Until now, it was more a feeling of a pre-season, like an overseas pre-season, and it was good like this,” the England head coach said on the eve of his first international tournament.
“I think it’s enough if the pressure and tournament pressure comes a bit later, because it will come. The tension will come naturally.
“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, which we absolutely did.
“I felt today the energy in the stadium was amazing and 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’.
“This will hopefully be an amazing experience because it’s the first time for me and it’s a World Cup, and it’s coming.
“I think once the ball is rolling and games are already there, then I will feel it, and the latest in Kansas when we prepare then the official match.
“The tension will grow but normally the stuff that I personally enjoy the most, then you feel that you’re alive.”
England round off preparations with an in-house friendly back at their West Palm Beach pre-tournament home, before enjoying a day off and travelling to their World Cup base in Kansas City on Saturday.
Thursday’s behind-closed-doors encounter against Miami FC offers the chance for those that need it to build game time after a match that some feared may not go ahead given a storm swept across Orlando.
But the Inter&Co Stadium surface withstood that deluge, and an hour delay provided an important reminder that players will need to be flexible this summer.
“In hindsight, it was good for us to have a bit of a delay, so we could even adapt to that and see if it affects us,” Tuchel said. “The group was amazing.
“We were not distracted, we didn’t lose our focus, and we had an excellent and determined performance from start to finish.”
