England's first World Cup training session: What did we learn?

By

Senior football correspondent, AtKansas City

England arrived at their permanent World Cup base in Kansas City on Saturday and immediately got down to business.

Shortly after dropping their bags off at the Inn at Meadowbrook Hotel in Prairie Village, where the team will stay for the duration of their stay in the United States, they made the 20-minute trip to their training centre at Swope Soccer Village for their first session since arriving in Missouri.

The locals welcomed Thomas Tuchel's men into their community with open arms but also with a high security, the team escorted by a motorcade of protection.

There was nothingm however, to protect the players from the searing sun, with temperatures reaching around 31C, as the team were put through their paces.

And this is what BBC Sport noticed from England's opening training session in Kansas City.

BBC Sport reported on Friday that there was an emerging sense that the team that started against Costa Rica on Wednesday will be the side that Tuchel selects in the team's first game against Croatia on Tuesday - and there were further reasons to believe that may be the case on Saturday.

For part of the session the 10 outfield players that started versus Costa Rica: Jude Bellingham, Ezri Konsa, John Stones, Nico O'Reilly, Elliot Anderson, Harry Kane, Anthony Gordon, Declan Rice, Noni Madueke and Reece James trained away from the rest of the squad.

Of course, it may simply have been a coincidence that the 10 were grouped together - but if you were looking for clues into how Tuchel's team may look in Dallas on Tuesday then reading something into that would be understandable.

One obvious potential alteration to the team that beat Costa Rica would be Bukayo Saka for Madueke, but Tuchel's confirmation that the former requires managing through the tournament due to fitness concerns has raised questions over the Arsenal attacker's involvement.

Saka trained away from what appeared to be the starting group and still did not look like he was moving freely.

Speaking after the training session, players appeared to be conscious of trying to play down the impact of the theft that saw equipment stolen on Friday.

It emerged on Friday night that items had been stolen from a vehicle that was carrying equipment from England's pre-tournament camp in Florida to Kansas City.

On Saturday night, Kansas City police confirmed that two men, Mustafa Salik and Erfan Kamal, had been charged in connection with the incident that saw $18,000 worth of property sold.

The Football Association, however, has been clear that no elite performance equipment had gone missing and that the majority of what was stolen has now been recovered.

It was claimed that the property taken was four pairs of football boots, one ball, a pair of goalkeeper gloves and training kit.

And speaking about the theft, Dan Burn said: "I've not lost anything personally, we found out from you guys (the media).

"It's with the police now so not sure how much I can comment. It's not really been spoken about so that just shows for us that they aren't too worried about it - it's not really disrupted our preparations."

With England's World Cup preparations now in full swing, the focus on the group matches will shift up a level.

If the Florida camp was about acclimatisation to the hot and humid conditions, training in Kansas City will narrow in on preparation for their group games versus Croatia, Ghana and Panama.

Head coach Tuchel said: "We have acclimatised, they have worked hard enough and been exposed to enough heat - we are in a good place.

"The focus is on Croatia, today is about settling in and from tomorrow it's about three days preparation for Croatia."

Captain Harry Kane provided similar sentiments, saying: "This is where the business starts, this is going to be our home for the next six weeks hopefully - we look forward to getting started.

"I thought it was a high level performance against Costa Rica – and now we prepare for a tough first game. Croatia are a difficult team, they have proved in the last two World Cups that they can be one of the best teams in the tournament and we have to be ready for that."