England manager Thomas Tuchel admitted his team played too freestyle in 1-0 win against New Zealand at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa in the warm-up game ahead of the FIFA World Cup. However, the German is confident that his players will bring their A-game to the pitch, come the World Cup.
Three Lions’ veteran Harry Kane scored through a header in the first-half stoppage time to give them the lead. England had 71% possession against the Kiwis and registered 23 shots but Tuchel was not super happy with their performance.
Asked about the performance overall, Tuchel said: “I’m OK with it. I’m not super happy about it. I liked the second half more than the first half. I think we had more bite in the second half, were more aggressive on and off the ball, created a bit more. Some good half-chances and some good penetrations into the box.
“We played more from our positions and that’s why we played with more speed. The first half we were out of positions and it was a bit too much freestyle. That slowed our game down and made it difficult for counter-press because we were not in the positions we wanted to be when we started attacking.
“So that’s basically the story of the match. We were taking crosses, a lot of long-range shots which is normally not our style of play. We played a lot of long balls, a lot of long passes. That was not part of training in the past four days. It was a bit of a mix of everything. That’s why the first half looked as it looked.
“To put it in context, a lot of our players played the last time together in November. So, it is half a year ago. We have [just] four training sessions together and we mixed the team up completely so we never played before in these combinations to give everyone 45 minutes. And then you have the conditions, the pitch, it can look like this.”
The pitch was only laid a few days earlier but both teams avoided any injuries with the World Cup due to begin on June 11.
“It was very difficult to play on,” Tuchel said. “I think it was not dangerous to have injuries. We have no injuries and there were no concerns but it was very uneven, very uneven. It was difficult to move the ball and move the ball quickly. When you have the ball for the majority of the match, it doesn’t help you.
“It is what it is. It can happen. I know it from preseason tours overseas that you can play in stadiums that are not normally football stadiums, that the pitch is maybe too new and not fully grown and fully even.”
England will begin their World Cup campaign against Croatia on June 17th.
