Before the first hydration break England’s statistics – as well as their performance – were poor. <\/p>\n
They had zero shots and touches inside box before the break, but improved afterwards with eight shots and 20 touches in the area by half-time.<\/p>\n
It was a similar story in the second half, where the hydration break seemed to prompt an upturn in England’s performance.<\/p>\n
They had two shots on goal and seven touches in the box before the three-minute break but then six shots and 13 touches after, with Kane scoring the two crucial goals.<\/p>\n
During both hydration breaks, Tuchel gathered his team around him and was animated in giving instructions, with the players nodding their head in agreement at what was being said.<\/p>\n
“I make the most of it,” said Tuchel. “You know I don’t really love them.<\/p>\n
“I enjoy football more when it plays out with momentum and players and teams have to find their way into it in these kind of momentums. It is a free-flowing game that is more interrupted than I thought. <\/p>\n
“But they are here, why would I not try and take advantage? I felt today it was easier today to speak to players, they were very calm, very receptive. <\/p>\n
“Sometimes the water breaks can be a bit chaotic, everyone tries to encourage, everyone has a message, everyone tries to help. <\/p>\n
“I felt them quite calm and quite focused in the key moments.”<\/p>\n
England pushed more players forward after the second hydration break, were finding more space on the flanks and played with more urgency as DR Congo visibly tired.<\/p>\n
“At times it can sort of change the momentum and give you a bit of time to breathe,” added forward Eberechi Eze. <\/p>\n
“Of course, we were on the better side of it this time, but it’s part of the game.”<\/p>\n
Tuchel’s use of the hydration breaks was noted by Fifa president Gianni Infantino, who said: “After an intense start to both halves, England used their hydration breaks well to regroup, re-organise and get on the front foot before finding the net twice in the final 15 minutes. <\/p>\n
“These breaks are so important to give players a break during tournament play, while also allowing all coaches a dedicated moment in every match – not just depending on the weather conditions – to engage directly with their players.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before the first hydration break England’s statistics – as well as their performance – were poor. They had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-668980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}