FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Thomas Tuchel said his plan to ensure England’s attacking players continue to thrive at the World Cup is to “not disturb the music” when they take on Ghana.
The Three Lions beat Croatia 4-2 in Dallas in an impressive start to their Group L campaign as Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham and substitute Marcus Rashford all got on the scoresheet.
England can seal top spot with a win over Ghana at Gillette Stadium on Tuesday and when asked how Tuchel got his forwards to play with freedom, the coach appeared to paraphrase Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan who said “the art of conducting is knowing when to put down the baton so as not to disturb the orchestra.”
“I am a very happy and very lucky coach because they arrived with this mindset so I didn’t have to get them in the mindset,” Tuchel said. “They arrived with it.
“Now it is the difficulty to keep them in this mindset. A very famous conductor gave the quote ‘he doesn’t want to disturb the music and he doesn’t want to disturb the musicians.’ So that’s basically what we try to do in the coaching team.
“We don’t disturb the players, we don’t disturb the match. We just encourage them to play with freedom, especially in the attacking position.
“It is quite impressive at the moment buys into the idea of defending together. That’s what we did excellent in the second half, push out constantly into a high press. That’s what we try tomorrow.
“The game will play out in itself. We can’t predict what’s happening. I predict a little bit of a different game than Croatia because of the different approach, but who knows? We have to be ready to find answers to any question that is asked tomorrow.”
Tuchel added that he had a fully-fit squad to choose from after Bukayo Saka joined full training last weekend.
“Everyone’s available,” the England coach said. “Everyone was in training. Bukayo is getting better and better. He’s more and more free in movements. He feels no more pain.
“He was able to do both our training sessions the last two days on highest level, so he’s ready to go without telling you if he will start or come from the bench.”
England wrap up group play against Panama on Saturday at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
