England manager Thomas Tuchel has revealed that Declan Rice was bedridden for the majority of the three days leading up to the World Cup quarter-final victory over Norway.
Rice started the 2-1 win at the Miami Stadium but visibly struggled in the intense heat before being substituted at half-time for Arsenal teammate Eberechi Eze.
Norway took the lead through Andreas Schjelderup before Jude Bellingham pulled England level just before the break and then scored the decisive goal in extra-time.
The result sets up a World Cup semi-final against Argentina, who defeated Switzerland, with the match kicking off at 20:00 on Wednesday, 15 July, live on the BBC.
Tuchel confirmed that several players were affected by the conditions, with Rice’s situation made significantly worse by illness on top of an existing physical problem.
“We had some players struggling in the heat,” said Tuchel. “Ezri Konsa was one of them with cramps and the hamstrings.”
Rice had already been managing a neural issue affecting his hamstring and lower back before the illness took hold, though he did train on the eve of the quarter-final.
Tuchel explained that his decision to withdraw Rice at the interval was made before kick-off, rather than being a reaction to how the match unfolded against Norway.
“Declan, we made a decision in half-time to become more offensive, to have a bit of an offensive shift,” said Tuchel. “I made the decision when we were 1-0 down and didn’t want to go back on the decision because of the equaliser.”
The England boss was also thinking strategically about the possibility of extra-time, which ultimately did come to pass in Miami.
Tuchel added: “We had to take Elliott [Anderson] or Declan out [and] knowing that Declan struggled after the last three days where he was most of the time in bed, I knew he cannot survive 90 minutes.”
“There was a possibility that it goes 120 [minutes], so I didn’t want to waste another change, so the decision was to take Declan earlier out than he needed to go out, just to save us another change later down the match.”
Rice, who played a key role in Arsenal’s Premier League title success last season, has now started five of England’s six matches at the 2026 World Cup, missing only the group stage game against Panama.
England will now prepare to face Argentina in what promises to be one of the most anticipated semi-finals in recent World Cup history.
