England turned a low-key World Cup warmup into a one-sided scoreline on Thursday, beating Miami FC 6-0 at the end of its West Palm Beach training camp. Ivan Toney scored a hat-trick, and the game finished with an impromptu penalty shootout after the final whistle.
The result matters because it came in a closed-door match built for England’s final checks before the Group L opener against Croatia, and because Miami FC treated it like a useful test of its own. Victor Lonchuk said the club had been looking forward to the game for weeks, but England made clear from the start that Miami could use any shape or game model it wanted and simply see what it could do against them.
England did not need long to take control. It scored once in the first period and five times in the second, with the format changed before kickoff from three 22-minute periods to two 25-minute halves. Both sides made wholesale changes at the break, which gave England’s staff a chance to assess more players across a shorter, sharper workout while also protecting legs at the end of camp. Toney’s first goal came in the first half, and he added two more after the restart to finish with three.
That was the night Miami FC wanted: a stress test against a higher-level opponent, and one that still offered some moments to judge. Miami, a USL Championship club sitting seventh in the Eastern Conference and 12 points behind the Tampa Bay Rowdies, made 11 changes for the second half because a match against Oakland Roots was looming on Saturday. It still found one notable opening, when Mathieu Ndongo hit the crossbar after the break.
The friction in the evening was not about the score alone. Tuchel told Miami to play however it wanted, and Lonchuk said the whole situation felt different in a way that made the occasion worthwhile. He said Tuchel was still collecting towels and bottles from the field at the end, and described Jordan Henderson as super aggressive in closing down Miami players with intensity, something he called impressive from a player with that career in a friendly. England had already beaten New Zealand 1-0 and Costa Rica 3-0 in its build-up, and this latest runout gave it another clean set of minutes before Croatia. Miami got its look at elite tempo. England got its next layer of answers.
