Thomas Tuchel confirms Declan Rice will be England vice-captain for World Cup

Rice joined up with his team-mates at England’s training camp in West Palm Beach on Saturday evening.

The 27-year-old has previously taken the armband for England when Harry Kane has not been involved, and he has now been officially named as the vice-captain.

After England beat New Zealand 1-0 in their penultimate warm-up game, Tuchel said: ”I think I would say Declan is my vice-captain.”

And asked whether Rice knew that the England head coach added: ”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. We started with Ollie [Watkins] as the No. 9 and I think Declan was captain. That was where I told him.”

England take on Costa Rica on June 10 in their final friendly before beginning their World Cup campaign.

The Three Lions have been drawn in Group L and face Croatia in their opening match of the tournament on June 17.

They then go up against Ghana on June 23 and Panama on June 27.

Kane scored the decisive goal on the stroke of half-time in a hard-fought victory over New Zealand.

The 32-year-old Bayern Munich striker said in the aftermath that he feels he is in ”the best shape I have been in my career” as he prepares to try and help England to a first major trophy in 60 years.

Speaking to ITV pitchside, captain Kane said: ”We're going into a tough environment, a tough tournament, I'm excited for it. The World Cup is the biggest tournament of all, and I'm looking forward to it getting started really.

”It's a good win as it's not easy. The heat is hard, the pitch wasn't great. To be honest, it was really hard to play the way that we wanted to play. But this is why we are here, to adapt to it. In the end, we probably could've scored a couple more, but we know we are here more for preparation than the result.

”We appreciate all the support, for us to get that much support in this type of game knowing how much it cost, we hope we can repay them well.”

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