Tuchel names Declan Rice England vice-captain ahead of World Cup opener against Croatia

Thomas Tuchel confirmed Declan Rice as England’s vice-captain for the World Cup on Saturday, with the Arsenal midfielder arriving at the squad’s West Palm Beach training base in Florida alongside club team-mates Bukayo Saka, Noni Madueke and Eberechi Eze as England beat New Zealand 1-0 in Tampa.

Rice, 27, joins the camp fresh from a defining club season — playing a central role in Arsenal’s Premier League title win before narrowly losing last weekend’s Champions League final. The 72-cap midfielder had previously captained England during Harry Kane’s absence for October’s friendly against Wales, and Tuchel indicated that conversation effectively settled the vice-captaincy.

“I think I would say Declan is my vice-captain,” Tuchel said after the New Zealand match. Asked whether Rice had been formally told, the England head coach smiled: “That is a good question. I was just thinking about it. Whether it is an official thing or not. But I think we had this talk when Harry was not in camp with us. We started with Ollie [Watkins] and I think Declan was captain. That was where I told him.”

The Arsenal quartet began training with the full group on Sunday, with attention now turning to Wednesday’s warm-up against Costa Rica in Orlando. Tuchel said the approach for that fixture will be “different” to the split-squad format used against New Zealand, though he has yet to finalise how many minutes the late arrivals will receive.

“We will get bigger chunks of minutes because it is part of the build-up and then after that we will have six days or something for Croatia,” Tuchel said. “We need some players to play 60 or 70 minutes.” He added that a behind-closed-doors fixture against USL Championship side Miami FC has been arranged after the Costa Rica game to help manage squad minutes.

England travel to their Kansas City base on Saturday before opening their World Cup campaign against Croatia on 17 June. They will also face Ghana and Panama in Group L.