As England trained for the first time here in a Florida true to its ‘Sunshine State’ reputation, the good news for Thomas Tuchel was that spirits and intensity were every bit as high as the temperature and humidity.
‘That’s so Barcelona!’ hollered Dan Burn, after his former Newcastle team-mate Anthony Gordon side-footed into an empty net from two yards. Their relationship, clearly, has survived Gordon’s £70million switch to Barca last week.
There was noticeably less interaction between Gordon and Marcus Rashford, the colleague whose place at Camp Nou he looks to have taken. The dynamic between that pair is a fascinating sub-plot inside the camp, given they are also competing for a starting spot on the left of England’s attack.
It felt like advantage Rashford in the moments before this 70-minute session began in Palm Beach Gardens, when England’s squad numbers were revealed with him at No 11. If those numbers are an insight into Tuchel’s thinking, then Jude Bellingham has the nod at No 10 ahead of Morgan Rogers.
To see Bellingham at such proximity is to appreciate what a supreme athlete – and footballer – he is, as well as the presence he exudes within the group. When he asks for the ball, he gets it. There was a side-eye glance at one team-mate after a pass that needed a little more zip.
Not that the pace on the ball was lacking for the majority of this workout, which carried an air of trials day. Tuchel will like that. He did not overly involve himself with the drills, instead stalking the various groups, whistle in mouth and stopwatch in hand. He is the boss.
England had a successful first day in Florida as they trained in preparation for the World Cup
Thomas Tuchel can be pleased with his work – and took a liking to a sprinkler in the heat
The German removed his black cap only once, not in appreciation of a piece of skill, but to bathe his brow above a sprinkler. When one coach turned the water away as it intruded on a rondo, the players demanded the impromptu air conditioning be turned back.
‘This week is about building our capacity to the conditions,’ said Jordan Henderson, whose hybrid role of squad player and Tuchel’s chief whip was impossible to miss.
Henderson counted the passes in the rondos and even tweaked the rules at one point. ‘I was the referee, so I was allowed to,’ he later smiled.
Harry Kane’s leadership is less demonstrative. He led the group of 26 onto the pitch and, after his group lost out in one challenge, he did 15 press-ups as a forfeit when the others stopped at 10. The captain looks in magnificent shape, as we might expect on the back of a 61-goal season for Bayern Munich.
The challenge in which his group came up short was fun – five players connected by towels and needing to juggle the ball 15 yards between them before teeing up a team-mate to finish first time into a small goal. When John Stones contrived to hit the crossbar from three yards, Kane did not hide his horror. Laughter soon followed. As it did when Burn ended up on his backside amid the whiplash speed of another keep-ball exercise.
Those towels soon came in handy at a mid-session break, during which Bellingham pinged the new Adidas Trionda fully 50 yards and flush on to the crossbar. Who else?! His dad, Mark, was in attendance at the session, as were some others parents.
But the father figure of this squad is Henderson, as Tuchel intends, and the midfielder spoke afterwards about setting standards now and maintaining them, revealing the ‘invisible work’ mantra they are using internally.
‘Invisible work is making the hard yards – getting back when you lose the ball, the reaction to win the ball back,’ he said. ‘It is the little things that not everybody will see, but we notice and we understand the importance of that as a team. It’s about doing that, not only in training but in every single game we play.
The squad know there are hard yards to come ahead of their opening game against Croatia
‘We have to be ready to sacrifice for each other. We have to be ready to do all that invisible work and to support each other, because we all know the talent the squad has and how we can hurt teams. It’s exciting, but there’s a lot of work to be done.’
That worked started here, beneath bright skies and even brighter smiles. Only when the players disappeared did the storm clouds move in and empty. That timing felt like a piece of early good fortune for Tuchel and his players.
‘When Thunder Roars, Go Indoors!’ read the sign nailed to the training-ground gate, and in monsoon season that is just one inconvenience England are certain to encounter.
But for today – day one – all is well. Only 47 more to go before the World Cup final in New York, 1000 miles north of here. Tuchel should be happy with the first steps taken.
