ATLANTA, June 30 (Reuters) – England go \u2060into their last-32 tie against the Democratic Republic of Congo as overwhelming favourites, but in a World \u2060Cup which has seen upsets and late winners, manager Thomas Tuchel says there will be no \u200cover-confidence from his side against a team with nothing to lose.<\/p>\n
Tuchel’s England topped their group and on Wednesday come up against DR Congo, the best-ranked of the third-placed sides.<\/p>\n
Already in the round of 32, Germany went out to Paraguay on penalties, as did the Netherlands at the hands \u200bof Morocco. Brazil needed a late winner to see off Japan and \u2060Norway did the same against the Ivory \u2060Coast.<\/p>\n
“I think it can calm us down in a way,” Tuchel told reporters on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
“It’s just narrow margins, it’s tight \u2060football \u200cmatches, and it helps us not to over-expect. It helps to put it in the right framework, what has happened in this World Cup and in world football.<\/p>\n
“Teams are well-driven, teams defend at the highest level, \u2060teams are well prepared. And it’s difficult for any team to \u200bbreak teams down, especially when you \u200carrive as a favourite, especially when you face teams who have nothing to lose.”<\/p>\n
DR CONGO ARE UNDERDOGS<\/p>\n
DR \u2060Congo are one such \u200bside, and the Congolese, who held Portugal to a draw, have gone further than they or anyone else expected.<\/p>\n
“We expect a similar kind of game like we faced against Ghana, like we faced against Panama,” Tuchel said.<\/p>\n
“We arrive as favourites, and they can play \u2060in the role of underdog, which suits them very well.<\/p>\n
“We have \u200bthe team spirit, we have the commitment, we have the quality to turn half chances into chances, to make crosses difficult, to arrive with numbers in the box, and to decide this match in maybe very few key moments.”<\/p>\n
Those key moments \u2060may include a penalty shootout, and Tuchel spoke about his side’s preparations.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s very difficult to simulate the pressure, so we train what we can train,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The FA has a program in place. We follow this program in detail, and it’s just an important and very specific part of football that comes into play in knockout matches.<\/p>\n
“We \u200busually know who takes them and will have the order in place. But \u2060we don’t know who finishes the game, so that’s kind of the adjustment that you have to make.”<\/p>\n
England will be without \u200binjured right back Reece James, and his replacement against Panama, Jarell Quansah.<\/p>\n
“The \u200crace was close even to make it into the squad \u200bthis time,” Tuchel said.<\/p>\n
“So we need to make sure that we have more matches. That is the main focus and that they will be available very soon.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Trevor Stynes, editing by Ed Osmond)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA, June 30 (Reuters) – England go \u2060into their last-32 tie against the Democratic Republic of Congo as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":771081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,13201,596,85,21418],"class_list":["post-771080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}