Thomas Tuchel has told his England players “not to lose their heads” despite a turbulent build-up to their World Cup round-of-16 clash against Mexico.
England arrived in Mexico City on Friday amid uncertainty over the kick-off time of Sunday’s clash at the Azteca Stadium after FIFA discussed — but ultimately decided against — bringing the game forward six hours amid concerns over fan safety and forecasted severe thunderstorms.
The Football Association have attempted to combat the effects of playing at altitude — Mexico City is 2,240m above sea level — by arranging for the team to travel a day earlier than usual to the Mexican capital, where they trained on Saturday in an effort to adjust.
England had hoped to keep their team base a secret after Ecuador complained to FIFA over disruption the night before they lost 2-0 to Mexico in the previous round as fireworks were let off outside the team hotel.
Asked about the complicated build-up, Tuchel said: “Like so often, it is so much noise. When you are inside of the bubble, it is actually quite calm, quite focused.
“And the bigger the stages, the bigger the noises, the calmer the preparation. I think the players were not even aware of a possible change of kick-offs and just this example shows you to not lose your heads.
“We cannot influence it. Three-and-a-half hours later, you land in Mexico and the kick-off time stayed the same. It is just not worth losing our heads. Altitude: it is what it is. Home crowd: it is what it is. It is not in our favour.
“We need to overcome obstacles but we have the spirit, we have the commitment, the pure will and the glue between the team to overcome these things. That’s why I am positive. We know what’s coming. The players will feel it, we will all feel it tomorrow when the energy is on. But that’s also the beauty of it. We focus completely on what is possible to be influenced by us.”
England’s session took place at Pumas UNAM’s training complex and Tuchel admitted they felt the effects of altitude but he believes his players will grow into Sunday’s game.
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“You know what, we feel it,” he said. “We feel it even if we don’t train. I felt, for example, a slight headache in the hotel room through the day. Didn’t sleep as well as the days before but nothing that you cannot handle and cannot adapt [to].
“I think the players felt it in the first minutes of the training session and the longer it went, they could cope with it better. It is just what it is. We cannot physically adapt.
“It is just impossible but we are here one day before to experience it at least, to not have all the first time experience tomorrow in [the] warm-up. We will have tomorrow’s warm-up, especially with the flight of the ball, with a bit of shortness of breath.
“I think it is not a coincidence that Mexico starts their matches normally at home very strong, very front-footed, very aggressively because I think the first 15-20 minutes will be maybe the toughest for us. Once we overcome that and we experienced it a little bit already today, I think we are in a good place.”
There is heavy security around England’s team hotel and Tuchel was pushed on whether he feared England would suffer a poor night’s sleep before the game if Mexican fans attempt to disrupt them.
“We had no issues last night,” said Tuchel. “I think FIFA took care of the situation, and we have security around the hotel, so we expect a good night of sleep. We have a 6 p.m. kick-off, so if we miss some hours of sleep, we will have time to get some other hours in the late morning.
“I don’t want to talk about problems that don’t exist yet, it just feels not right. What I have experienced until now was very respectful and was very emotional, but also very supportive towards our team.
“So we are very respectful to everyone. We respect the opponent, we respect the occasion of the match. We expect to also be treated with respect, and that was the case, so to talk now about potential problems just does not make sense to me. If they come, we will accept them.
“That’s the whole approach for the whole tournament. It’s a demanding tournament in itself, and the best way to approach it is to be relaxed and calm and focus on us.”
