No time for experimentation, says England manager Tuchel

VIDEO SHOWS: ENGLAND MANAGER THOMAS TUCHEL SPEAKS AHEAD OF WORLD CUP QUALIFIER AT HOME TO SERBIA COMPLETE SCRIPT TO FOLLOW SHOWS: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (NOVEMBER 12, 2025) (REUTERS – Access all) 1. ENGLAND MANAGER THOMAS TUCHEL WALKING INTO PRESS CONFERENCE ROOM 2. (SOUNDBITE) (English) ENGLAND MANAGER THOMAS TUCHEL, ON WHETHER HE'LL USE THEIR STATUS AS ALREADY QUALIFIED TO EXPERIMENT WITH THE TEAM, SAYING:     "We will always try a bit and adapt, but I didn't feel us experimenting in the last two camps, and we will not start in this camp. This is a package of three camps. We take it serious, it's World Cup qualifiers, home match. We're here to win, we want to build on what we built and keep on going." 3. PRESS CONFERENCE IN PROGRESS 4. (SOUNDBITE) (English) ENGLAND MANAGER THOMAS TUCHEL, ON WHETHER HE HAS A SOLID IDEA OF WHAT HIS SQUAD WILL LOOK LIKE NEXT SUMMER AT THE WORLD CUP, SAYING:     "I know quite a lot about tomorrow, but about May and June, I don't know so much. I hold myself back from knowing too much, or pretending to know too much, or even being too focused. So much can happen. Nobody wants injuries to happen, but injuries can happen, players can pull out, players can drop in form, other players can have a form (surge). I'm very much open for the next months, so that's why I don't feel the pressure and I don't feel the World Cup urge at the moment. I just feel the excitement and the pressure for tomorrow because we want to perform and it is like always, it's step by step, and the next step is Serbia tomorrow."  5. PRESS CONFERENCE IN PROGRESS 6. (SOUNDBITE) (English) ENGLAND MANAGER THOMAS TUCHEL, ON WHAT SERBIA WILL LOOK LIKE NOW UNDER NEW COACH VELJKO PAUNOVIĆ, SAYING:     "Now, there is a new coach with new energy, like you said, in the same strong group, a proud group, a group of players, and we have to do it again. This is what football and what elite sports is all about. It's always about the next match. It does not help us to look back just at the (previous) result (against Serbia) and misinterpret it into an easy match. We put a lot into it and we will have to put a lot into it tomorrow. There is a special task to it that we absolutely don't know what's coming. We don't know from the structure what is coming. We can just guess and we can just presume what we think is coming when we analyse the coach's teams. But we don't know, so it's a big test for us to adapt in the game, to be flexible, to adapt, to communicate quickly and to adapt in our press and to adapt in our attacking and defending shape to what the opponent is offering because we basically have no evidence of the team and the coach playing together." 7. PRESS CONFERENCE IN PROGRESS 8. (SOUNDBITE) (English) ENGLAND MANAGER THOMAS TUCHEL, ON EXPECTATIONS FOR MARCUS RASHFORD, SAYING:      "He's in a good place. He's with us in our squad because he deserves (it). He needs to prove himself in Barcelona every three days, which is good for us. He needs to prove himself in our camps, which is just a normal and right thing to do, to bring the best out of him. It's still such a long time to go. My head is not in the World Cup and not in the end of the season. We deal with everything when it comes to it and he's in a good place now. He's competitive, and that's why he's here and he needs to prove the point in the next two matches." 9. TUCHEL LEAVING PRESS CONFERENCE

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