England’s heatseekers begin World Cup countdown with Tampa test

“I t was hot in ’94,” thundered Alexi Lalas, the former USA defender turned Fox Sports analyst, who starred for his country when they were the sole World Cup hosts that year. “And guess what? It’s going to be hot again this time.” Lalas’s booming address came last December at the draw in Washington DC for this summer’s tournament and, to digress slightly, it was difficult not to fixate on his sheer vocality. Lalas is loud and confident, outspoken and there was the moment when he considered England’s chances at the finals. Notoriously, they failed to qualify 32 years ago. To sum up, Lalas made it plain that England were coming to his turf with the express intention of making off with the trophy, bringing it home and so on and he, for one, was absolutely not OK with that. What does he have against England? It was unclear. Anyway … Lalas’s main point about the heat and humidity was that he was in no mood to hear any moaning about it and the message appeared to be directed at the European heavyweights, including England. Just deal with it, lads. It is the same for everybody. England are dealing with it. There is a reason why Thomas Tuchel wanted to oversee his first training session of the summer in West Palm Beach on Tuesday – 15 days before England kick-off the mission to add a second star to the shirt against Croatia in Dallas. The manager has been keen for his players to acclimatise as early as possible and there is no more testing environment than Florida. …