‘We’re not in England any more’: Tuchel hopes Kansas City is World Cup haven

‘We chose a hotel where you can open the window’

Prefer the Guardian on GoogleThomas Tuchel believes England can create a home away from home in Kansas City this summer to push their dream of World Cup glory. The manager is on board with the Football Association’s choice of an intimate boutique hotel for the squad – with training facilities 20 minutes away – and says they hope to fly in and out of Kansas City for matches throughout their stay at the finals.

The FA has been attracted by how Kansas City, which straddles the states of Kansas and Missouri, is located in the centre of the US, thereby mitigating travel distances to games. It is also happy with the accommodation and training base.

The hotel is the five-star, 54-room Inn at Meadowbrook, which is on the Kansas side of the state line. The FA has asked for a basketball court to be put in for the players and, in the absence of one on-site, will locate a local swimming pool for them. The Inn is in a quiet and secluded area.

The FA’s first choice of training ground was Sporting Kansas City’s performance centre, but Argentina secured it. The Engalnd hierarchy is comfortable with the selection of the Swope Soccer Village, which is the home of Sporting Kansas City’s academy teams and is on the Missouri side. The Netherlands and Algeria will also be based in the region.

Tuchel said: “To have a home, to have a bed that you’re used to sleep in, to have a bed with a good mattress, to have a hotel with privacy … a small hotel, not a 400, 500, 800‑bed hotel where we see each other maybe just in the elevators or on the floor between breakfast and meeting room; the air conditioning is on and you cannot open the windows. There are a lot of these hotels in America.

“We chose a hotel where you can open the window, where it’s an intimate and small place. Once we get used to that place, it makes sense to go back. Maybe the headline is: ‘We try to be as often in Kansas as possible.’”

England fly to Florida at the beginning of June for a pre-tournament camp, where they have warm‑up matches against New Zealand and Costa Rica. They must wait until 17 June to play their first group game against Croatia in Arlington; the latest possible start date. Their schedule stands to become more congested after the second group tie against Ghana in Massachusetts on 23 June.

“I have feedback from the players that they like we start late, that they like that it then becomes condensed so you have no chance to get bored once you go through the tournament,” Tuchel said.

“Hopefully the longer we will get, the more demanding it will become. And it will become very condensed. There will be a lot of flights. There will be a lot of time at airports. There will be a lot of time together.

We have to get our chemistry right. This is the most important.”