Tuchel wants England to keep playing with freedom

Syndicated reporting provided by Stats Perform and reviewed by the SoccerNews editorial team.

Thomas Tuchel has encouraged England to keep playing with freedom as they aim to wrap up their World Cup progress.

England know a victory over Ghana at Boston Stadium would send them through to the knockout stage.

It would also guarantee their progress as Group L winners if Croatia went on to avoid defeat against Panama.

England are looking to win each of their opening two games at a World Cup for the fourth time, after completing the feat in 1982, 2006 and 2018, and they come into this clash on the back of an excellent attacking display against Croatia.

Harry Kane scored twice, with Jude Bellingham and Marcus Rashford on target in a 4-2 win, and though there were some shaky moments defensively, Tuchel was reluctant to disrupt too much when it came to his team’s approach.

“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 positions.

“It is quite impressive at the moment, everyone buys into the idea of defending together. That’s what we did excellently in the second half [against Croatia], push out constantly into a high press.

“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.”

4-2 – Tonight was England’s first 4-2 win in a FIFA World Cup match since the 1966 final against West Germany.

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) June 17, 2026

England talisman Kane has netted five goals across his five international appearances against African nations, with three coming at the World Cup, against Tunisia in 2018 (two goals) and Senegal in 2022.

If he scores against Ghana, Kane will overtake Gary Lineker (10) to become England’s all-time top scorer at the World Cup.

“For me, he is one of those players you’ll be telling the kids when you’re older that you got to play with Harry Kane. For me, that’s how good he is. He’s one of those players,” Declan Rice said of Kane.

“I’m very fortunate. One, he’s our captain, but two: how he leads by example every day, how he pushes in training.

“It’s not a surprise to me how good he is just because of the goals he scores in training, what he’s been doing at Bayern Munich, what he’s been doing in an England shirt.

“It’s been an honour to play with him. I’m very lucky that I get to play with a striker like him.”

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