2026-06-23 11:25:25

Thomas Tuchel doesn’t like the World Cup hydration breaks.

The breaks have featured in every match of the tournament so far and Tuchel – whose side will take on Ghana in their second group game on Tuesday (23.06.26) – has expressed concern about the impact the stoppages are having.

The England boss said: “I think that it interrupts and changes the identity of a football match much more than I thought. I had hydration breaks before when it was really, really hot and needed, but they were shorter.

“They were shorter and they were just in a few matches. In the interests of fairness here, it is now done in every match for every team.

“It breaks the match almost in four quarters. And I think it changes the characteristic of the match more than I thought.”

Tuchel revealed that the hydration breaks are beneficial from a coaching perspective but he is frustrated at the way it breaks up the “momentum” of a match.

The German coach said: “I like it as a coach, of course, because it is good to have influence and have my team together.

“Overall, though, I think I like football more when it’s played in one go in one half because it builds a momentum. It’s part of the game.

“It’s hard to build momentum, and it’s hard to keep the momentum, when there are breaks.

“If you do not have a break, then it’s just like the battle on the field between the players and the teams. It plays out in a longer period of time. It just adds to the character of the beautiful game.”

England will seal a spot in the last 32 should they beat Ghana in Boston and Tuchel is determined to “not disturb the music” of his attacking players following their opening win over Croatia.

He said: “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. 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 position.”

Visit Bang Premier (main website)