England's first World Cup warm-up game revealed with Three Lions set to take on nation for just third time in history

Per The Sun, England are set to take on New Zealand in a World Cup warm-up in Tampa on June 6. They are poised to land in the United States on the first day of the month and will undergo a short training camp before taking on the All Whites. The two sides have only met twice, doing so in back-to-back friendlies in June of 1991. England, then managed by Graham Taylor, won the first friendly 1-0 thanks to a Gary Lineker goal, and won the second 2-0 after strikes from Stuart Pearce and David Hirst. New Zealand are now ranked 85th in the world, behind the likes of Syria, Qatar, and South Africa, but they have qualified for the 2026 World Cup. 

Per The Guardian, England's FA are finding it difficult to arrange the second warm-up friendly for the tournament. The Three Lions kick off their tournament on June 17, against Croatia. That is the final date on which group games will take place, and Tuchel wants the second warm-up friendly to take place on June 10th, which is 24 hours before the curtain-raiser between Mexico and South Africa. England cannot play a team who has qualified for the tournament on the 10th, as FIFA regulations prevent a team from playing in a friendly in the final five days before a tournament, so are said to have earmarked Costa Rica as potential opponents. They have not qualified. 

Tuchel's side have struggled to play top-level opposition and the report states that the highest-ranked side they have beaten in the FIFA rankings is Wales, who were 30th. The best team they have played according to the rankings is Senegal, and the African nation beat them 3-1 in Nottingham last summer.

Tuchel has made it abundantly clear that his ambition is to win the World Cup. 

He said in December: "Yes, because we have got better. We have to arrive and try to make a special thing happen, but we cannot guarantee it."

He added: "Everyone knows that we cannot promise that we will win it, but they want to see a team, team spirit, a team that gives everything [and] fights for each other and they want that if they are in the stadium or watching on the TV.

"If the players bring that then I think anything is possible. We will be brave enough to dream about it, we will be brave enough to try it."

He is already thinking ahead, and replied when asked if he could tell substitutes to remain in the dressing room to avoid the debilitating heat in America: "If this is what helps us later in the match when they come on, OK, we consider that as a possibility.

"Nobody likes it as I want the players to be out here and feel the energy and give the energy from the bench onto the field, but I know what you mean. I saw teams doing this and players doing this at the Club World Cup. Hopefully we can avoid it. It is always better if they can be with us."

England kick off their tournament against Croatia and will also play Ghana and Panama in their group. Beforehand, at Wembley, England will play a double-header of preparatory friendlies against Uruguay and Japan, and will then travel to the States to begin preparations in earnest.