Thomas Tuchel was left fuming after England's narrow 1-0 victory against New Zealand in their pre-FIFA World Cup 2026 friendly fixture. The England manager slammed his players for playing 'too much freestyle' football during the match.England manager Thomas Tuchel slammed his players. (IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters)Harry Kane scored the solitary goal with a header in first-half stoppage time. Commenting on his team's performance, 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."Also Read: Brazil's next great leader? Vinicius Junior and the pursuit of football immortality at the 2026 World Cup"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."‘We were taking crosses, a lot of long-range shots’Tuchel also pointed out that England attempted a lot of crosses and long-range efforts, which is usually not their playing approach."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," he said."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 match also saw Rio Ngumoha become the fifth-youngest player to make his England debut, aged 17 years and 281 days.Next up, England have a friendly against Croatia on Wednesday in Orlando, then head to their training camp in Kansas City. They begin their tournament on June 17 against Croatia in Dallas.