Thomas Tuchel says he and his coaching staff ‘broke our heads’ when thinking of ways to approach the final international break before the World Cup. Trying to understand how it will actually work feels equally challenging.
Nineteen outfield players and four goalkeepers will meet up at St George’s Park ahead of next Friday’s Wembley friendly against Uruguay with eleven other members of a 35-man squad not joining until the morning after the game.
If that only makes 34, the missing body is that of Brighton goalkeeper Jason Steele who will essentially be on trial as a coach.
We know the eleven players who will then arrive on the Saturday ahead of the second game, against Japan, because Tuchel has named them. It’s the core of his first team, basically. In terms of the nine or ten who will then be sent home, Tuchel says they know who they are. Equally, he says it could change.
‘It felt at the time, when we looked at it, a bit messy and this solution felt the least messy,’ Tuchel explained.
‘I’m not going to tell you the names who will go home because it would not be nice to read your name. And there is always the last decision on Saturday morning.
Thomas Tuchel has called up a whopping 35 players in a cunning move for his final auditions
‘So I have told them that it can be that their camp ends there and that is very likely because someone will be coming in on their position. And I don’t want to get confused with a bigger group of players. I want to keep it streamlined and focused.
‘But there is also a chance with overperformance and injuries that a player stays.’
If that all makes the coming week’s England environment feel a little like the Big Brother house then it’s not something Tuchel wished to shy away from. Asked if there was a sense of an audition for fringe players and new arrivals to hang around beyond next week, he didn’t deny it. ‘Of course,’ he said.
‘Why wouldn’t it be?
‘I think it’s very important to be clear about that.
‘I think the structure right now gives us exactly that.’
Friday was a strange day to be on England duty. It began with news that the likes of Harry Maguire and Kobbie Mainoo were back in along with Leeds striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Everton’s James Garner.
That felt significant until it became clear that just about everybody was in, including five goalkeepers and a star player in Jude Bellingham who is technically still injured.
Everybody, that is, apart from Bellingham’s Real Madrid team-mate Trent Alexander-Arnold who must now adjust to the reality that his international career is on permanent pause while Tuchel is England manager.
To think we now live in a world where the likes of Djed Spence and Jarell Quansah are selected at right-back ahead of Alexander-Arnold takes some getting used to. But ever since Tuchel recalled Jordan Henderson from nowhere to pick him in his first squad a year ago, it has been clear that the German will do his work at the FA his own way.
Tuchel cannot be accused of lacking the courage of his convictions and this selection – as unprecedented as it is – also serves to underline in its own way that provisional places have already been reserved on the plane to America this summer for the likes of Newcastle’s Dan Burn and Manchester City’s Nico O’Reilly.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s inclusion might have made big news until it became clear that the Leeds star was one of a number of options
Named in the group of players given a week off ahead of the game against Japan, the message from Tuchel is that theirs are berths in the summer squad of 26 to lose.
‘I would never call it an A and B [squad] but these eleven players have at the moment more credit with me than the other players,’ explained Tuchel.
‘I think just naming it is more clear. I see the danger [in that message].
‘But is there not also a danger if we call everyone that it’s just like a huge mix-up in motives and situations?’
The truth is that Tuchel’s motives for what some are calling a split-squad are mixed. He wants to see some new players while not disenfranchising those who have played well for him during qualifying. More fundamentally, he feels some of his stellar names need a rest and cited a player such as Morgan Rogers of Aston Villa, currently central to his club’s ongoing ambitions in the Premier League and Europa League.
‘If we had two qualifying matches, we would not rest anyone,’ Tuchel explained.
‘I would not gamble on that. But friendlies give us the chance to give the players a mental and a physical rest.
‘I’m not so worried about Harry Kane at the moment because he had already a bit of a break that comes in Germany in winter. But I see that the likes of Bukayo Saka, Morgan Rogers, Elliott Anderson have played more minutes than they had in the whole of last season. And then I look at their schedule.
‘So if we want to have Morgan not fully exhausted in June, we will just have him exhausted instead. I think we will benefit from this.’
The lack of a Premier League winter break used to infuriate Gareth Southgate and deep down it probably does Tuchel too. He knows it’s a pointless conversation, though.
‘Don’t kill Boxing Day football,’ he smiled on Friday.
The issue may yet follow England to America, regardless. England’s World Cup schedule will be arduous and tired footballers will be found out.
In terms of who travels, the likes of Mainoo and Maguire have it all on to make it, simply because in order to do so they will have to dislodge players who have already endeared themselves to the head coach.
Burn ahead of Maguire and Adam Wharton ahead of Mainoo may not sound right to some but that’s where the smart money remains.
But this mini-audition begins at St George’s Park on Monday and we will see where it takes us. The B Squad – if that’s what it is – has four training sessions and a game to make an impression. The odd member, meanwhile, may get to play two different hands.
Asked about Phil Foden – in this squad but in the cold currently at City – Tuchel confirmed he would compete for the number ten position with Cole Palmer in week one.
‘But then he will stay,’ said Tuchel. ‘As a number nine…’
