Thomas Tuchel admits he immediately felt the effects of altitude after arriving in Mexico for England’s World Cup last-16 match.
England face the World Cup co-hosts at Azteca Stadium and Tuchel has already pointed out that his players are at a disadvantage due to the game being played at around 7,200ft above sea level.
The Three Lions arrived in Mexico City on Friday evening and Tuchel says his players do not have enough time to adapt to the altitude.
Mexico, meanwhile, are yet to concede a goal at the World Cup and have played all four of their matches at high altitude, with three games at Azteca Stadium and the other in Guadalajara, which is around 5,000ft above sea level.
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‘You know what, we feel it, we feel it even if we don’t train,’ Tuchel said.
‘I felt, for example, a slight headache in the hotel room through the day. Didn’t sleep as well as the days before but nothing that you cannot handle and cannot adapt.
‘I think the players felt it in the first minutes of the training session and the longer it went, they could cope with it better. It is just what it is. We cannot physically adapt.
‘It is just impossible but we are here one day before to experience it at least, to not have all the first time experience tomorrow in [the] warm-up. We will have tomorrow’s warm-up, especially with the flight of the ball, with a bit of shortness of breath.
‘I think it is not a coincidence that Mexico starts their matches normally at home very strong, very front-footed, very aggressively because I think the first 15-20 minutes will be maybe the toughest for us. Once we overcome that and we experienced it a little bit already today, I think we are in a good place.’
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Earlier this week, Ecuador issued a complaint to FIFA after Mexico fans disturbed their players with fireworks and car horns outside of their team hotel before their defeat in the last-32 stage.
Security has been improved at England’s hotel in Mexico City with a heavy police presence around the building, and Tuchel is confident that his players will not suffer a similar disturbance to Ecuador.
‘We had no issues last night, I think FIFA took care of the situation and we have security around the hotel, so we expect a good night of sleep,’ Tuchel said.
‘We have a 6pm kick-off so if we miss some hours of sleep, we will have time to get some other hours in the late morning.
‘I don’t want to talk about problems that don’t exist yet, it just feels not right. What I have experienced until now was very respectful and was very emotional but also very supportive towards our team.
‘So we are very respectful to everyone. We respect the opponent, we respect the occasion of the match. We expect to also be treated with respect, and that was the case, so to talk now about potential problems just does not make sense to me. If they come, we will accept them.
‘That’s the whole approach for the whole tournament. It’s a demanding tournament in itself, and the best way to approach it is to be relaxed and calm and focus on us.’
Tuchel also dismissed the impact of Friday evening’s farce as FIFA strongly considered moving the kick-off to 12pm local time (7pm BST on Sunday) before it stuck with the original time of 6pm local time (1am BST on Monday).
‘Like so often, it is so much noise. When you are inside of the bubble, it is actually quite calm, quite focused,’ Tuchel said.
‘And the bigger the stages, the bigger the noises, the calmer the preparation. I think the players were not even aware of a possible change of kick-offs and just this example shows you to not lose your heads.
‘We cannot influence it. Three-and-a-half hours later, you land in Mexico and the kick-off time stayed the same. It is just not worth losing our heads. Altitude, it is what it is. Home crowd, it is what it is. It is not in our favour.
‘We need to overcome obstacles but we have the spirit, we have the commitment, the pure will and the glue between the team to overcome these things. That’s why I am positive. We know what’s coming. The players will feel it, we will all feel it tomorrow when the energy is on. But that’s also the beauty of it. We focus completely on what is possible to be influenced by us.’
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