England will hold a behind-closed doors friendly in Kansas City on Thursday, head coach Thomas Tuchel has confirmed.
Sources told ESPN that the opponents are not yet finalised, but conversations are taking place with MLS side Sporting Kansas City. England followed the same plan last week, facing off against Miami FC in their West Palm Beach base the day after beating Costa Rica in Orlando. They won 6-0.
The Three Lions have six days between Wednesday’s Group L opener against Croatia and their second match versus Ghana in Boston.
Read more:U.S.’ Tori Penso second woman to officiate men’s World Cup game
And Tuchel said: “It is true that we try to play an in-house match after the match against Croatia. It is simply to use the time.
“We have many days in between the matches and we can give the players who have not played so many minutes tomorrow just a load and an actual match load and not only from training.
“We did this after the match against Costa Rica and I think we will do it one last time on the day after the Croatia game.”
Read more:A new Ishiguro novel heads to 1930s England, with spies, music and wit
England were forced into a late change to their squad after Tino Livramento picked up a calf injury in training on Sunday. Chelsea‘s Trevoh Chalobah was named as his replacement, although he is not in contention to feature against Croatia in Dallas.
Explaining his decision to select Chalobah, Tuchel said: “”Tino was of course very disappointed and very sad. All of us were. It was kind of a little shock in training. When he stopped training, he straight away had the feeling that this can be an injury that cost him the tournament and he was unfortunately right.
“After assessment we got the information that it’s an injury of about four or five weeks, which is unfortunately too long to keep on like rebuilding and reintegrating him into the squad, so we took the decision to send him home.
Read more:JD Vance went on television to plug a faith memoir. ‘The View’ had other plans
“He was of course disappointed and so were we. He was a key player, in good shape and available for both sides for us as a full-back.
“We called Trevoh Chalobah because then we free up Jarell Quansah as full-back on both sides and Djed Spence can play both sides as full-back, so Trevoh comes as a centre back alternative and gives us full coverage in the back four.”
