World Cup 2026: Why I replaced Declan Rice at halftime – England coach Tuchel

England coach, Thomas Tuchel, has explained why he replaced midfielder, Declan Rice at half-time during the Three Lions’ World Cup quarter-final 2-1 win against Norway.

Tuchel admitted that the Arsenal star had been bedridden because of his illness this week.

Rice struggled with an illness this week, but he kept his place in England’s starting XI.

The former West Ham star was replaced at half-time alongside Noni Madueke, who struggled to make an impact on the right wing against Norway.

“Declan, we made a decision at half-time to become more offensive, a bit of an offensive shift,” Tuchel said at his post-match interview when asked about his decision to replace Rice.

“I made the decision when we were 1-0 down and I didn’t want to go back on the decision because of the equaliser. I thought this was the right signal to give the team to have higher positions when Norway defends in a deep block.

“So we put in Eze and Bukayo on the right wing which meant we had to take Elliot or Declan out, knowing Declan’s struggles in the last three days where he was most of the time in bed, I knew he could not survive 90 minutes and there was a possibility of 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.”