PREVIEW: Tuchel’s England history surprise package Japan | OneFootball

England will take on Japan at Wembley Stadium this evening as they look to bounce back from a frustrating Friday night draw with Uruguay. Meanwhile, Japan will look to build on recent friendly wins over Brazil, Ghana, Bolivia and Scotland as they continue to look towards this Summer’s World Cup.

England conceded a controversial 94th minute penalty on Friday night, which was converted by Federico Valverde, cancelling out Ben White’s opener. Phil Foden also picked up an injury on Friday, but has remained with the squad ahead of tonight’s game. However, eight players have withdrawn from the camp and returned to their club’s, those being; Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, Noni Madueke, Fikayo Tomori, Aaron Ramsdale, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Adam Wharton and John Stones, who have now all returned to their clubs.

England boss Thomas Tuchel had his say on Rice and Saka’s departure yesterday saying, “They wanted desperately to play to get the narrative straight, but it made no sense to make the risk.If it was the last game of the season we would have kept them, but in this moment of the season it did not make sense. The risk for making it was way too big. They were both clearly in discomfort when we did the medical assessment. It made absolutely no sense that they stayed.”

Japan were in action in Scotland on Saturday afternoon, and ran out 1-0 winners over Steve Clarke’s side at Hampden thanks to a late winner from Junya Ito, the winger plays his domestic football for Genk in the Belgian Pro League and has now racked up 67 caps for his country as well as 15 goals.

There have been three previous meetings between the two nations, the first saw England pick up a 2-1 win in the 1995 Umbro Cup, a 1-1 draw followed in June 2004 before a friendly in Austria between the two saw England run out 2-1 winners once again in 2010. The Three Lions will of course be firm favourites ahead of tonight’s match, as they currently sit 4th in the FIFA World Rankings, whilst Samurai Blue find themselves 18th, just less than 200 ranking points behind Tuchel’s side.

Tuchel also spoke yesterday about how he feels his side compare to other teams heading to the World Cup at this stage. “We got a lot of things right, in most of the phases. We need to have these kind of tests now to get to know each other better. We have time to be prepared. Do you think Brazil will not be prepared in June? I think they will. Once you arrive, you don’t think about March. We will be ready.”

This evening’s game is scheduled to kick-off at 7:45pm (UK time.)