Declan Rice has been named as England’s vice-captain for the World Cup and Thomas Tuchel has made it clear he sees the Arsenal midfielder as a future captain
Declan Rice has been appointed England’s vice-captain ahead of the World Cup, with the Arsenal midfielder also earmarked as a future skipper.
England manager Thomas Tuchel has revealed that Rice belongs to a “special group” of indispensable players alongside Harry Kane, who remains a certainty in the starting line-up.
Rice will shoulder additional responsibilities as part of England’s leadership group, which is headed by skipper Kane. However, Tuchel clearly views Rice as the natural successor and a formidable leader — even if he conceded he is not entirely certain whether he has officially informed Rice of the role.
When pressed on his vice-captain, Tuchel said: “I think I would say Declan is my vice-captain.”
Asked whether Rice is aware of this, Tuchel smiled: “That is a good question. I was just thinking about it. Whether it is an official thing or not.
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“But I think we had this talk when Harry was not in camp with us. Was it against Wales? We started with Ollie Watkins and I think Declan was captain. That was where I told him.”
That was a friendly against Wales last year, in which Rice did indeed captain the side — a significant honour for the midfielder. With Kane turning 33 next month, Tuchel is already planning for England’s captaincy future, and Rice is firmly at the top of his shortlist.
Arsenal’s contingent have since linked up with the England squad at their training base in West Palm Beach, following the friendly victory over New Zealand in Tampa. Rice, Bukayo Saka, Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke have now joined up with the squad, yet Tuchel has admitted he remains uncertain as to how much game time they will receive against Costa Rica in Wednesday’s forthcoming friendly.
Tuchel added: “It will be different against Costa Rica. We will get bigger chunks of minutes because it is part of the build-up and then after that we will have six days or something for Croatia. We need some players to play 60 or 70 minutes.
“I am not sure about the Arsenal players. Let’s see how they come back. Three training days and let’s see. We have one more match behind closed doors the next day to manage all the minutes.
“Let’s say if someone plays 70 minutes against Costa Rica and someone else only plays 20, that is also not enough so there will be players who only had 20 or 30 minutes and will play the next day again.”
