Tuchel confident England will adapt to World Cup conditions

Thomas Tuchel is confident England are ready to handle everything thrown at them, as their World Cup preparations continue in Florida.

The Three Lions take on New Zealand in Tampa on Saturday (9pm BST), the first of two warm-up matches before the opening World Cup fixture against Croatia on Wednesday 17 June.

Tuchel’s side have been battling a full range of weather in the Sunshine State, with high heat and humidity accompanied by rain and thunderstorms in West Palm Beach.

But the England boss has no concerns, with his squad ready to adapt to whatever comes at them across North America.

“We still had the chance to train on a high level. The training was not affected by the weather,” he said in his pre-match press conference, which is available to watch in full exclusively on the official England App.

“In the opposite, it's easier to train without the sunshine, so no problem. We adapt to it; we make the most out of it.

“It will be tough, it will be hopefully a long World Cup. It will be a lot of travelling, it will be a lot of adversity, from the heat, from humidity. We had a delay in training already for almost one hour because of lightning.

“But that's also the task for us, and that's also what we want to achieve, to have an atmosphere where we stay calm, where we stay patient and where we adapt to the circumstances. That's just what it takes, I think, to go through the tournament.”

The weather has not changed any plans ahead of taking on the All Whites, with Tuchel looking to give lots of his squad playing time.

He explained: “The plan is tomorrow to play 45 minutes with two complete teams to expose everyone to the same amount of minutes.

“Then we can continue the next three days with the same load of training, that is the plan, and at the moment we stick to the plan.”

Tuchel now has a full suite of options available to him ahead of tomorrow’s warm-up match, with the final members of the squad arriving in West Palm Beach.

Arsenal quartet Declan Rice, Eberechi Eze, Noni Madueke and Bukayo Saka all touched down in Florida on Friday and Tuchel is pleased to add more trophy winners from this season to his squad, that also contains Europa League champions Ezri Konsa, Morgan Rogers, and Ollie Watkins and Europa Conference League winner Dean Henderson.

“It's amazing,” he added. “We said congratulations in the first meeting here in Florida, because it is always an achievement to win silverware.

“That is always something that you should cherish and take in completely, because it's something very special and makes a season special, and it does something to a player. We're very, very happy that we have a lot of winners and it just lets your confidence grow in a genuine way, so it's not artificial.

“Players know that they can handle the pressure. You cannot substitute this kind of feeling and this kind of belief.”