Thomas Tuchel said England are not favourites to win the 2026 World Cup, even as he described them as challengers who want to go all the way. The England manager made the assessment in his latest news conference during the build-up in the United States, where he is trying to keep the conversation away from glory talk and toward the work still ahead.
The comments matter because Tuchel has been asked repeatedly whether he thinks England can win it, and he has not gone along with the idea that they should be cast as the team to beat. Instead, he pointed to luck as one of the factors that will shape the tournament and warned England not to get too far ahead of themselves before it has even started. For readers following England’s World Cup build-up, that is a sharp change from the usual pre-tournament noise: Tuchel is trying to set the temperature low while still insisting the squad can chase the title.
That approach sits alongside what he has already said about the group. In March 2025, before his first game in charge, Tuchel said the team had been too full of fear to go and win Euro 2024, and he said his mission was to remove that trepidation. He summed up the message simply: “We play with the hunger and the joy to win, not with the fear to lose.” That line has become the clearest marker of how he wants England to think as 2026 draws closer.
The build-up in the US has reflected that mood. England players’ families and friends were invited into the base for a big barbecue all together, and the squad were given a lot of time off to enjoy their holiday. They were also free to go out to restaurants in Miami in the evening, with Marc Guehi saying he had been to the beach to chill out and met up with family in local coffee shops. Harry Kane and Jordan Pickford also played golf with Brooks Koepka during their downtime.
Yet there is a gap between the relaxed camp and the hard edge of the message. Tuchel says England are not favourites, but he has also described them as challengers who want to go all the way, while naming Portugal, Brazil and Spain as other sides in the chase for the trophy. There were no pictures or social media posts of England players out and about in Florida, which keeps the focus on the privacy of the camp rather than the performance of a team already under the glare of expectation.
For England, the next stage is not debate but delivery. Tuchel’s job now is to keep the squad loose enough to play with freedom and serious enough to turn that freedom into results when the World Cup starts in 2026.
