England will face Erling Haaland's Norway on Saturday in the scorching Miami heat, and Thomas Tuchel has history with the Manchester City striker, despite not coaching him

England boss Thomas Tuchel made a joke at his own expense while insisting England cannot avoid focusing on Erling Haaland. The Three Lions boss poked fun at German newspaper Bild when reminded he was crowned Coach of the Year after winning the Champions League with Chelsea in 2021.

After that success, Tuchel said he wanted to sign Haaland from Borussia Dortmund and later made an apology for his comments. Haaland joined Manchester City a year later. “I always need to apologise,” smiled Tuchel.

“They don’t get my humour! Anyway, were you surprised that Bild gave me an award? Yeah… there was no way out. Because if Jurgen Klopp won at the same time the Charity Shield they give it to him…”

Tuchel was in a mischievous mood which is maybe one way of taking his mind off having to deal with Norway danger man Haaland who has already scored seven goals in this World Cup. The former Chelsea boss insists that Norway have other dangerous players but says the “full focus” of his defenders will be on trying to stop Haaland.

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Tuchel added: “You can’t avoid focusing, for sure not. There is so much quality in these moments and you have to make decisions, how to defend it. He will always arrive on the second post.

“The whole world knows it – he loves to arrive on the second post so the question is when to make contact with him. It’s also a type of defender type of thing.

“Some defenders like to stay zonal and get the earlier jump, some defenders like to step back and start fighting with him on the ground physically – but then he pushes you maybe aside and gets a free header.

“If you stay zonal he jumps over you. So he has all the weapons once you arrive in the box. There are of course ways to make life hard for him when he starts accelerating and when they play long balls.

“Because Norway are not shy to play long balls in to (Alexander) Sorloth and he starts bullying people, that’s what he does. So it’s a team effort but of course the full focus of our central defenders will be on him (Haaland).”

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Tuchel insists his players will be ready for red-hot temperatures in Miami. Weather forecasts predict a potential rain storm and also 32-plus degree heat for the World Cup quarter-final in Miami.

It will be the first time that England have faced such temperatures as they had rain in Mexico City, an air conditioned stadium in Atlanta and everywhere else has been manageable.

But Tuchel says their preparation and research will now pay off and give England a “slight edge” over Norway. Tuchel said: “Science says that we banked a lot of heat training. That will help us.

“This week, today, we spent quite some minutes in the heat and then we will go from there. Subjectively, for me, it's always like 'can you really prepare for that?'

“We knew when we stepped out of the plane in Miami, we expected it to feel painful. Maybe we are still lucky and we get another dark cloud over the stadium! And full rain. It was like this.

“But everything we did, how we trained, where we trained, when we started this journey together in America, was to prepare. That's what science says. So hopefully it gives us a slight edge. We haven't lost it because we banked it in the heat training sessions.

“But the games of course, like you said, they were indoor or, in Mexico it was quite chilly actually, no-one could foresee that. Now, the forecast is that it will be a tough one. But for our opponents as well.”

Tuchel says he is also hoping that England will enjoy Miami just as much as they did in Mexico City. He added: “I was heavily in love with this experience in Mexico, to change country, to fly into such a football country, such an emotional country.

“Training on this training ground was very special and playing in the Azteca and having a match like this was really the full package of an experience.”

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