England's unused players get a chance to play training match against Sporting KC
England's unused players will get the chance to train with Sporting Kansas City after their World Cup opener against Croatia, giving them extra match practice ahead of the next match.
Thomas Tuchel will give the 13 England players who did not play against Croatia on Wednesday a chance to train and play against Sporting Kansas City. The England squad returned to their base in Kansas City from Dallas after Wednesday's 4-2 win in Dallas, but Tuchel is keen to give some "extra match loading" to players who did not feature in the game. This will not be a formal 90-minute match. England have four days in Kansas City before they fly to Boston on Monday, where they face Ghana on Tuesday. Due to the recovery of players who played against Croatia on Wednesday, England's group on Thursday will be made up of players who did not feature or came on as substitutes. Dean Henderson, James Trafford, Jarrell Quansah, Dan Byrne, Jordan Henderson, Kobi Menu, Eberechi Eze, Ollie Watkins and Ivan Toney did not play any roles in the game. Morgan Rodgers, Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford, Jade Spence and Marc Guéhi all came on as substitutes in the second half. Rashford scored the fourth goal after being set up by Saka. "It's true that we are trying to play an in-house match after the Croatia match," Tuchel said at Croatia's press conference on Tuesday night. "We have many days between matches, we can give extra match loading to players who will not play so many minutes, not just from training. We did it after Costa Rica, we will do it one last time the day after the Croatia game." England played an unofficial friendly against USL Championship team Miami FC last week, playing two halves of 25 minutes each, and winning 6–0. The 2026 MLS season is currently on break during the World Cup, but Sporting KC's players have been in training for the past six days. Sporting KC is in the early stages of a total roster rebuild under Sporting Director David Lee, who joined the club at the end of the current season. Sporting KC is second to last in MLS with 11 points in 14 games, although its squad includes forward Dejan Joveljic, who plays for the Serbian national team.
