Thomas Tuchel played down the significance of latest friendlies and history suggests team lineups can have little bearing on actual tournament
“I
t’s just March,” Thomas Tuchel said after a winless international break. March doesn’t matter. March is for winding up the Wembley crowd by playing Ben White. For Phil Foden as a false 9. For Dominic Calvert-Lewin agonising over narrow misses. For Jason Steele in the crucial emergency fifth goalkeeper spot.
Will any of this matter when England head to Miami for their World Cup training camp on 1 June? History suggests the answer is yes … but also no. The last camps before a tournament can be odd. For Tuchel, comparisons with the past are awkward. The modern calendar has been squeezed by the club game and it is not surprising that his players are exhausted when the physical demands on Premier League teams are so extreme.
The pace was gentler when Sir Alf Ramsey found solutions in a host of friendlies in the run-up to the 1966 World Cup. Geoff Hurst, scorer of a hat-trick in the final against West Germany, made his international debut only in February of that year. Ramsey had a lot space to experiment. England went on a tour of Scandinavia in June (their opening game at the World Cup was on 11 July) and it is worth pointing out that Martin Peters, England’s other scorer in the final, did not win his first cap until a friendly against Yugoslavia on 4 May 1966.
