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Published : 06 Jun 2026, 10:39 AM
England's World Cup preparations have been hit by concerns over a potentially poor pitch for Saturday's friendly against New Zealand as well as unexpectedly wet weather in Florida, though manager Thomas Tuchel said he would stick to his plans.
England are using the match in Tampa, the first of two warm-up games before their Group L opener against Croatia on June 17 in Dallas, to help players acclimatise to the heat and humidity.
While persistent rain and overcast skies have limited their planned exposure to sunshine, Tuchel said the conditions had not disrupted training.
"It just showed us you can plan whatever you want, and life does what it wants," Tuchel told reporters on Friday. "It was a lot of rain, it was a lot of grey sky, very unusual.
"Today was the first day in the sun, complete day in the sun, which is what we wanted. We adapt to it, we make the most out of it."
Tuchel said the squad would make up for lost time, adding: "We don't have the hours that we wanted to be exposed but we will catch up with it, I think, in the next weeks."
Photos of the pitch for Saturday's friendly have raised concerns about the quality of the playing surface and the potential for injury, with the grass resembling a patchwork quilt.
"What I heard until now is that it should be okay and we want it, of course, to be okay," Tuchel said. "I saw just a photo, that made me a little bit worried but let's decide when we are there."
England are expected to rotate heavily, with Tuchel planning to give most of his players precious minutes.
"The plan is tomorrow to play 45-45 minutes with two complete teams to expose everyone to the same amount of minutes," he said. "Then we can continue the next three days with the same load of training -- at the moment, you stick to the plan."
England play Costa Rica on Tuesday in a second friendly before the team relocate to their base camp in Kansas City to prepare for their tournament opener.
