England manager says team struggled for “rhythm”; Declan Rice taken off to avoid “any risks”
Thomas Tuchel has praised his England players for overcoming early World Cup jitters after they recovered from twice surrendering the lead to beat Croatia 4-2 in their opening match.
England began their Group L campaign with victory at Dallas Stadium but struggled for rhythm before the interval despite a brace from Harry Kane.
Croatia cancelled out Kane’s penalty through Martin Baturina and again levelled after the striker had restored England’s lead with a header, Petar Musa scoring in first-half stoppage time.
Tuchel said his side had struggled because they lacked conviction both in possession and without the ball, in contrast to the aggressive identity he wants to establish.
“I think we showed a bit of nerves,” the England head coach said. “Maybe we wanted to overdo it, but we clearly overthought our decisions. It took us too long to take decisions. When we could play short, we played long. When we could have played long, we played short.
“We couldn’t find a real rhythm in our game and even in defending it took us too long to make decisions to go as a block into the high press. We spent way too much time in a low block, which is also not our identity.”
The German suggested England were affected psychologically after being pegged back on both occasions they moved ahead. He felt his players became concerned with protecting their advantage and did not play with freedom.
“I had more the impression we have to protect something now, got punished for it, which is psychologically not easy,” Tuchel said. “But I loved the reaction after halftime. We encouraged them to go for it, to play with more courage, to be brave, to be ourselves.”
England responded by taking control after the break. Jude Bellingham restored their lead with a fine strike before Marcus Rashford, introduced from the bench, added a fourth goal five minutes from time.
Kane credited Tuchel’s half-time intervention for the improvement. “The manager gave us a speech at halftime, just to say if we lose we lose, but we lose in our way,” the captain said. “You saw that the way we came out in the second half, we came out full gas. They couldn’t live with it.”
The victory was also significant personally for Kane. The Bayern Munich forward moved level with Gary Lineker on 10 World Cup goals for England and became only the second England player, after David Beckham, to score at three separate World Cups.
Tuchel downplayed concerns over Declan Rice after the midfielder was substituted with 18 minutes remaining.
“Declan had some unusual ball losses and I saw a bit of discomfort,” Tuchel said. “I asked him and he pointed directly to his lower back, upper hamstring, that he feels discomfort.
“I didn’t want to take any risks. If I take Declan off, which I never want to do, but it was the moment to protect him.”
