England will play an extra World Cup match as Thomas Tuchel makes a surprising choice.
England is about to make history by becoming the first team to play an extra match during their World Cup journey. The Three Lions will start their World Cup against familiar opponents, Croatia, at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Wednesday night.
Since the World Cup has increased the number of teams to 48 for the first time, there’s a new knockout round with 32 teams. But England is planning to add one more game to their schedule. According to the BBC, England is talking about playing a friendly match against MLS team Sporting Kansas City.
These talks are still ongoing and nothing is set yet, but the plan is for England to play Sporting Kansas City between their World Cup games against Croatia and Ghana. England has already played Miami FC before, when they were training in West Palm Beach. In that game, Ivan Toney scored three goals in a 6-0 win a day after they beat Costa Rica in a friendly.
Now, England is based in Kansas City for the whole tournament, training at Swope Soccer Village. When asked about playing a closed-door game, coach Thomas Tuchel said it’s true they want to play a practice match after the Croatia game. He explained it helps the players who don’t get much time on the field stay sharp by giving them real game experience, not just training.
Tuchel said, “We have many days between matches and can give players who didn’t play much tomorrow a real match experience, not just training. We did this after the Costa Rica game, and we plan to do it again after the Croatia game.”
No team has ever played a friendly during a World Cup before, but Tuchel thinks this extra game will help players stay ready. It’s also a good chance to get Chelsea defender Trevoh Chalobah match-fit. He was called up late to replace Tino Livramento, who got a hamstring injury during training.
Livramento will be out for 4-5 weeks, so England had to send him home. Chalobah came in as an immediate replacement since he’s familiar with Tuchel from Chelsea and was almost signed by Bayern Munich.
Tuchel shared, “Livramento was a key player in good shape for us and both sides. We brought in Trevoh so we can move Jarell Quansah to full-back positions and Djed Spence can also cover full-back on both sides. Trevoh gives us solid backup as a center-back and strengthens our defense.”