{"id":481629,"date":"2026-06-08T02:49:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T02:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/481629\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T02:49:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T02:49:10","slug":"declan-rice-named-as-england-vice-captain-by-tuchel-for-world-cup-bid-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/481629\/","title":{"rendered":"Declan Rice named as England vice-captain by Tuchel for World Cup bid | England"},"content":{"rendered":"

Declan Rice has been named England\u2019s vice-captain by Thomas Tuchel, who has played down the significance of Jude Bellingham wearing the armband during the second half of the 1-0 victory against New\u00a0Zealand<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although Bellingham captained the side after coming off the bench in Saturday\u2019s World Cup warm-up in Tampa, Tuchel said that was simply because the midfielder was the player on the pitch with the most \u00adinternational appearances.<\/p>\n

The head coach was clear that the situation would have been different if Rice, who is a key member of England\u2019s leadership group, had been part of the matchday squad at the Raymond James Stadium. The midfielder, who was one of four Arsenal players given time off by Tuchel after the Champions League final, captained England when Harry Kane was unavailable against Wales last\u00a0October<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say Declan is my vice-captain,\u201d Tuchel said after being asked if anyone has been appointed to the role. \u201cI was just thinking about it \u2013 whether it is an official thing or not. But I think we had this talk when Harry was not in camp with us. Was it against Wales? Did Harry miss a game against Wales? We started with Ollie [Watkins] and I think Declan was captain. That was where I told him.\u201d<\/p>\n

England are using their time in Florida to acclimatise to the heat and the New Zealand game was essentially a training exercise. Tuchel played different XIs in each half<\/a>, with Kane coming off after scoring the winner late in the first half. Bellingham was introduced at half-time but Tuchel smiled and urged reporters not to read too much into the 22-year-old taking the armband in Kane\u2019s absence. \u201cHe had just the most caps,\u201d the German said. \u201cYou can check it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Declan Rice<\/a><\/p>\n

Tuchel, who refused to reveal whether Bellingham is part of the leadership group, will adopt a different approach to selection when England<\/a> head to Orlando to face Costa Rica in their final warm-up before opening their tournament against Croatia in Group L on 17 June. He said some players will play for over an hour against Costa Rica but is unsure if he will send out his preferred starting XI for the World Cup.<\/p>\n

The big question is whether Tuchel sees Bellingham starting as the No 10 in his best side. Morgan Rogers has credit in the bank after impressing during England\u2019s qualifying campaign. The Aston Villa attacker played the first half against New Zealand. Bellingham caught the eye after coming on but Tuchel stressed that the Real Madrid man is fighting for his place.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is,\u201d said the former Chelsea manager. \u201cHe\u2019s one of the starters, he knows that, he\u2019s one of the starters but there are 14, 15 potential starters. Then there\u2019s a special group and then there is a leadership group. Then there\u2019s guys who finish matches for us and get the energy right and have more the role of setting the standards and accepting their roles for challenging. And these roles can always change but in my head there are 15, 14 proper starters and Jude is one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Arsenal contingent arrived at England\u2019s pre-tournament base in West Palm Beach on Saturday but Tuchel is unsure if Rice, Eberechi Eze, Noni Madueke and Bukayo Saka will be involved against Costa Rica. \u201cLet\u2019s see how they come back,\u201d he said. \u201cThree training days and let\u2019s see. We have one more match behind closed doors to manage all the minutes. If someone plays 70 minutes against Costa Rica and someone else only plays 20, that is also not enough. There will be players who only had 20 or 30 minutes and will play the next day again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas Tuchel said Jude Bellingham captained England for the second half against New Zealand because he \u2018had the most caps\u2019. Photograph: David Buono\/Action Plus\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

One complicating factor against New Zealand was a questionable pitch. \u201cWe wanted to be here because of the heat first and foremost, which I thought we dealt with pretty well,\u201d Kane said. \u201cThe pitch wasn\u2019t great, so we\u2019re having to deal with that. That\u2019s going to happen in the tournament. We like to play quick, we like to play sharp and that wasn\u2019t always possible on that pitch. It was a bit sticky and dry. It is the first week and the match was another step in our preparation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe drinks breaks help. A lot of people talk about the heat but I don\u2019t think it will be as big a factor as people say. Myself and a few of the boys felt fine in the first game. We\u2019ve been training in it and it\u2019s not been too bad. I think it\u2019s easy just to say it\u2019s going to be really tough as it\u2019s different to what we are used to. But we are all athletes, we are professionals and have all played in warm-weather conditions before.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Declan Rice has been named England\u2019s vice-captain by Thomas Tuchel, who has played down the significance of Jude…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-481629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}