Miami vice for Declan Rice as Thomas Tuchel names Harry Kane’s England deputy
By Simon Peach, Press Association Chief Football Writer, Tampa
Thomas Tuchel has confirmed Declan Rice as England’s vice-captain for the World Cup after the midfielder and his Arsenal team-mates joined their preparation camp in Florida.
The 27-year-old arrived at the team’s West Palm Beach base with Bukayo Saka, Noni Madueke and Eberechi Eze on Saturday evening as their team-mates beat New Zealand 1-0 in baking Tampa.
Rice is one of the first names on the England team sheet and travelled to the United States fresh from playing a key role in Arsenal winning the Premier League and narrowly losing last weekend’s Champions League final.
The 72-cap midfielder’s quality and personality will mean he serves as vice-captain during this summer’s quest for World Cup glory having stepped up during skipper Harry Kane’s absence for the October friendly against Wales.
“I think I would say Declan is my vice-captain,” Tuchel said after beating the All Whites.
Asked whether Rice knows that he has that role, Tuchel said with a smile: “That is a good question. I was just thinking about it. Whether it is an official thing or not.
“But I think we had this talk when Harry was not in camp with us. We started with Ollie (Watkins) and I think Declan was captain. That was where I told him.”
Rice and the rest of the Arsenal contingent began work with the group on Sunday as attention turns to England’s final warm-up game against Costa Rica in Orlando.
Tuchel says the approach for Wednesday’s friendly will be “different” having fielded different teams in each half against New Zealand, but he has yet to decided how best to utilise the Arsenal players.
“We will get bigger chunks of minutes because it is part of the build-up and then after that we will have six days or something for Croatia,” he said. “We need some players to play 60 or 70 minutes.”
Asked if the Arsenal quartet will all play against Costa Rica, Tuchel said: “I am not sure about that. Let’s see how they come back.
“They come back (Saturday), three training days and let’s see.
“We have one more match behind closed doors to manage all the minutes because of course, let’s say if someone plays 70 minutes against Costa Rica and someone else only plays 20, that is also not enough so there will be players who only had 20 or 30 minutes and will play the next day again.”
England have lined up a behind-closed-doors meeting with Miami FC after facing Costa Rica to provide some training support.
The Florida outfit play in the USL Championship and were previously managed by Italy great Alessandro Nesta following their foundation 11 years ago.
England travel to their Kansas City base on Saturday and kick off their World Cup campaign against Croatia on June 17, before facing Ghana and Panama in Group L.
