Prateek Tanmay
3 min readJul 5, 2026 01:12 PM IST
England manager Thomas Tuchel has admitted that he suffered a headache and had issues with his sleep while acclimatising to the altitude ahead of England’s FIFA World Cup Round of 16 clash against Mexico.
The former Chelsea and Bayern Munich manager said the players could feel the effects during the opening stages of their first training session, but added that they gradually adjusted to the conditions.
“I felt a slight headache through the day, for example. I didn’t sleep as well as the days before, but nothing you cannot handle and that you cannot adapt. The players felt it in the first minutes of the training session, and the longer it went they could cope with it better,” Tuchel said in the pre-match press conference.
“Altitude: it is what it is. Home crowd: it is what it is. We have the spirit, we have the commitment, we have the pure will and the glue in the team to overcome these things. We know what is coming. But that is the beauty of it,” he added.
Tuchel said the opening 15-20 minutes of Sunday’s match would be crucial and that if England negotiated that period well, they would be in a “good place”.
“It is not a coincidence Mexico starts their matches strong and aggressively as the first 15 to 20 minutes maybe the tougher. Once we overcome that, I think we are in a good place.”
“The players are kind of adapted – you know about the situation. We will take care of what we need to take care of. We need a strong performance and I feel we will have one,” Tuchel said.
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There was also speculation before the match about an earlier kick-off because of projected storms later in the day. Although the change did not materialise, Tuchel said the uncertainty had no impact on his players.
“Inside the bubble, it was quite calm. The players were not aware there was a possible change of kick-off. Just this example shows you to not lose your head – we cannot influence it. Three and a half hours later, you land in Mexico and the kick-off time stayed the same. It is not worth losing your head,” he said.
