World Cup 2026: England boss Thomas Tuchel has 'full belief' his side can mount serious challenge to win tournament

Thomas Tuchel says he and his England players have “full belief” they are capable of winning the World Cup.

The head coach has told Sky Sports News that the recent conversations he has had with his players have left him convinced about their readiness to compete in the latter stages of the tournament, and the widespread unity in the squad.

Both factors, he believes, are vital if they are to put a second star on the England shirt.

The majority of Tuchel’s men will fly to Miami on Monday evening to begin a 10-day hot weather acclimatisation camp to prepare them for what is to come.

“When I reconnected with the games and built our training sessions and meetings to reconnect the team in Florida with what we have built already, I saw a lot of quality,” Tuchel told Sky Sports News, before flying out to the US.

“That instantly gave me the full belief and excitement that we can go a long way.

“Then things like the difficult phone calls, big phone calls, positive phone calls and the reaction of the players, it tells you that we have a connection already.

“It tells me the players care and they care so much. We had beautiful, touching reactions, even from players who were not called up and they were wishing us all the best. The way they reacted tells me we are on the right way and that gets me personally excited to be close.

“I can’t wait to get on the plane, look over my shoulder, finally have a team behind me and arrive in Florida and do what I love the most, which is be a coach.”

Tuchel: Heat a factor but not an excuse

Twenty-one of the 26-man squad will join up from a variety of locations, meeting in West Palm Beach to begin their pre-tournament training camp.

A number of those players have been holidaying in the US and Caribbean since the end of the Premier League season, with Tuchel’s recommendations ringing in their ears about the importance of acclimatising quickly to the temperatures and the different time zones.

England’s coaching staff, together with the FA’s sports scientists, have been planning for more than 12 months for the gruelling conditions that the players will have to deal with in North America, and possibly Mexico too in the knockout stages.

In Barcelona last June, the FA built specialist heat chambers to replicate what lies ahead, where temperatures are expected to reach the high-30s Celsius at times, with a stifling humidity of around 75 per cent.

While in Spain, the players were asked to swallow biometric tablets so that the FA specialists could monitor their internal temperatures and other key data as they exercised almost to the point of exhaustion. Every player was then ranked in terms of their ability to recover quickly.

The FA has also sought advice from a variety of other British sports teams, who have encountered similarly brutal conditions during international competitions.

Tuchel has acknowledged that the heat will be a major challenge for England, but is refusing to allow that to become an excuse.

‘Conditions are an obstacle to overcome’

“The conditions are not our biggest enemy but it is not to our advantage after a long and very demanding season for our players,” Tuchel said.

“We are not used to being in this kind of heat and humidity, and even altitude if we play in Mexico.

“There will be a lot of challenges in this World Cup. The heat is one of them but we are prepared already.

“We know the individual reaction of the players to the heat and we have cooling strategies in place.

“We’ve had help from Team GB and specialists all over the world to come up with solutions that help the players to adapt.

“We know exactly the amount of time we want to expose them in pre-camp, the ideal amount of time that you should train in the sun and that we also don’t do too much.

“Then the reality is that the first game [against Croatia on June 17) is indoors and the air conditioning is on, so it should not be a problem. From there, we have to adapt.

“It is a factor but it should not come across that we are already making excuses. It’s just not in our favour and it is an obstacle to overcome.”

Arsenal players given more time off after CL final defeat

The four Arsenal players involved in Saturday’s Champions League final will not join up with their England team-mates for several more days.

Tuchel has decided that Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, Noni Madueke and Ebere Eze should be given some extra time off to recover.

Expect those players – along with Dean Henderson who featured in Crystal Palace’s Europa Conference League triumph – to miss Saturday’s friendly match against New Zealand in Tampa, but to be fully in the fold in time for the final friendly against Costa Rica four days later in Orlando.

In the meantime Alex Scott, Ethan Nwaneri, Rio Ngumoha, Josh King and goalkeeper Luke Steele will train with the wider squad to give Tuchel and his coaching staff a full complement of players on the training field.

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