Tuchel voices pitch concerns ahead of England's friendly against New Zealand in Tampa

Thomas Tuchel has expressed concern about the condition of the pitch at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa after being shown photographs of the recently laid grass surface on the eve of England’s friendly against New Zealand on Saturday.

“I just saw it now,” the England head coach said. “It will not affect my team selection because what I have heard until now is that it should be OK and we want it, of course, to be OK. I saw just a photo from your colleague that made me a little bit worried and concerned, but let’s decide when we are there.”

The 65,000-capacity stadium — home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFL — had a grass field laid specifically for the fixture, and images circulating ahead of kick-off raised questions about how the sections of turf have joined together. Tuchel said his side would react if problems arose on the day, but that the plan remained unchanged.

“If there are any issues, we can always react to it,” he added. “The plan is tomorrow to play 45, 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.”

England arrived in Florida at the start of the week to begin acclimatising to the heat and humidity they will face at this summer’s World Cup, where they open their campaign against Croatia on June 17. Tuchel said the friendly would serve as much as a tactical exercise as a physical one.

“I think tomorrow is mainly focused more on the minutes, so we will share the minutes. But at the same time it’s also to reconnect to our identity and the stuff that we did good — we had a lot of meetings offensively and defensively and want to see how far we can push this already. It is maybe more about connections on each side, more about connections in the back four, on the side, in attack.”

England have travelled to Tampa with a 27-man squad that includes uncapped training group members Alex Scott, Rio Ngumoha, Josh King and Ethan Nwaneri, as well as training goalkeeper Jason Steele. The additional bodies have helped cover for Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, Noni Madueke and Eberechi Eze, who were given the week off following Arsenal’s Champions League final defeat on penalties to Paris Saint-Germain.

Tuchel was relaxed about reintegrating the quartet, dismissing any suggestion that the disappointment of that loss could linger into the World Cup. “I think there is no need to be overly disappointed and to carry it into the World Cup campaign. I will see them tomorrow, and I think it will be no issue to lift them if needed. But I saw pictures and I heard messages already that they’re happy to come — we’re in good spirits.”