Declan Rice has been named as England’s vice-captain for the World Cup – and marked down as a future skipper.
England boss Thomas Tuchel says Rice is in a “special group” of untouchables with Harry Kane who is also a nailed-on starter. Arsenal midfielder Rice will take on extra responsibility and is in England’s leadership group which is headed up by Kane as captain.
But Tuchel clearly sees Rice as next in line and a strong leader – even if he admitted he is not entirely sure whether he has told Rice officially. When asked who will be his vice-captain, Tuchel said: “I think I would say Declan is my vice-captain.”
Then when asked whether Rice knows that, Tuchel smiled: “That is a good question. I was just thinking about it. Whether it is an official thing or not.
“But I think we had this talk when Harry was not in camp with us. Was it against Wales? We started with Ollie Watkins and I think Declan was captain. That was where I told him.”
That was a friendly against Wales last year when Rice did captain the team and it will be a big boost for the midfielder. Kane is 33 next month so Tuchel is also thinking about future captains and Rice is top of the list.
Arsenal’s quartet have now joined up at England’s training base in West Palm Beach after the friendly win over New Zealand in Tampa.
View 2 ImagesDeclan Rice has captained England in Harry Kane’s absence
Rice, Bukayo Saka, Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke are now with the squad and yet Tuchel says he is not yet certain how much they will play against Costa Rica in the next friendly on Wednesday.
Tuchel added: “It will be different against Costa Rica. We will get bigger chunks of minutes because it is part of the build-up and then after that we will have six days or something for Croatia. We need some players to play 60 or 70 minutes.
“I am not sure about the Arsenal players. Let’s see how they come back. Three training days and let’s see. We have one more match behind closed doors the next day to manage all the minutes.
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“Let’s say if someone plays 70 minutes against Costa Rica and someone else only plays 20, that is also not enough so there will be players who only had 20 or 30 minutes and will play the next day again.”
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