THOMAS TUCHEL warned his England stars they face a horror tunnel walk in Serbia tomorrow night.
And Harry Kane reckons the walk from the dressing-room to the pitch will feel “a mile long”.
The Three Lions will have to cover 240 metres through the bowels of the Rajko Mitic Stadium — with armed police lining the walls.
But Tuchel believes the red-hot atmosphere at one of Europe’s most intimidating venues will finally bring the best out of his team after five underwhelming displays since he took charge.
The England boss said: “The fans, the occasion and opponent will bring out the best from us and I’m looking forward to it.
“The tunnel is not so agreeable. But that’s what it’s all about now.
“Serbia are so talented and determined. That’s the beauty of it and if you want to go to a World Cup and to play for the national team, experiencing this is the beauty. The Champions League is the same.
“This is one of these nights. Lights are on. Big crowd and an emotional sportive country. And we’re up for it.”
England skipper Kane and midfielder Jordan Henderson have spoken to the team and warned them about what to expect.
Tuchel added: “Jordan will have a voice in the team. Harry has played here. They have talked already about it.
“The spectators will be emotional. They will be loud but the stands are quite a distance from the stands and we will cope.
“Our young players will not be afraid. They are not afraid of anything. The group was excellent throughout the week and everyone deserves to play. We have some difficult choices and some narrow decisions to make. We will have a strong bench and age is not decisive.”
Kane was part of the Tottenham side which defeated Red Star Belgrade 4-0 in 2019 — after a fiery local welcome.
He said: “I’ve been to Serbia before, we played Red Star at this stadium with Tottenham.
“It was a pretty hostile environment — just the walk from the changing room to the pitch. It feels like a mile-long walk.
“There’s a lot of fans, you hear a lot of noise, a lot of banging.
“Sometimes when you get through these types of games together, especially as a newish team, like we are, that’s how you build experiences, build togetherness.
“The ideal situation would be to have a comfortable game and win but we know that’s not always the case, so there might be times we have to stick together, to defend as a team and ultimately find a way to win.
“When you do that against these types of oppositions in these stadiums, I feel that builds an extra layer of togetherness you can’t form without matches like this.”
The fear is that hostility spills over into racial abuse of England’s black players.
Serbian crowds have a long history of such offences and 15 per cent of the stadium will be closed on Tuesday night as a Uefa punishment for racist acts during two Nations League matches against Switzerland — including an attempt to burn an Albanian flag.
Yet provided the atmosphere does not cross that line, Kane admits he relishes playing in bearpit stadiums — with the challenge of making a pumped-up home support fall into a deathly hush.
Asked to nominate his most hostile experiences in away games, Kane nominated his previous trip to Belgrade, along with Tottenham’s 2022 visit to Marseille and Bayern Munich’s visit to Istanbul’s Ali Sami Yen Stadium to face Galatasaray a year later.
Kane was on the winning side in all three and hopes to repeat the trick tonight.
‘TOUGH ENVIRONMENTS’
He said: “Galatasaray away was one of the best atmospheres I’ve played in, just really hostile, a lot of whistling. They made it really difficult for us when I was there with Bayern.
“Similarly, Marseille away with Tottenham was, even though they had one of the stands shut down, it was one of the loudest — especially pre-game and the warm-up.
“A few good ones there, a few tough environments but sometimes you come away — especially when you win those type of games — with an even better feeling so hopefully we can do that here.”
Kane expects the Serbs to provide a very different match to Saturday’s grim 2-0 win over the ultra-defensive minnows of Andorra.
The teams we’re playing against have been almost happy to lose 1-0 or 2-0
Harry Kane
This is a fixture that will define the mood music of Tuchel’s reign ahead of the World Cup. And Kane, who played under Tuchel at Bayern, said: “I feel like this is probably our biggest test under his management.
“We’ve had a lot of games where we played against low blocks, where we’ve got a lot of possession and almost been playing against ourselves.
“The teams we’re playing against have been almost happy to lose 1-0 or 2-0 and not cause us too much threat, whereas this is going to be completely different.
“Serbia are a really good team so it’s a really good test, hopefully we can show the best version of us.
“But ultimately it’s about winning. If we win we’re really close to securing qualification, if we don’t, it makes the next camp a lot trickier.
“They’re a very physical team. Their centre-backs are big and strong. Their strikers like to have aerial duels.
“They like to play off second balls. They like to be physical.”
And Kane was happy to hear Tuchel considering a more direct style of play from England — after the striker touched the ball just 13 times in the entire 90 minutes against Andorra.
Kane said: “In the Andorra game we had more than 80 per cent possession.
“At times I felt we could have got the ball into the box quicker.
“We were in good areas and sometimes we circulated it too much and it became a bit slow.
“The goals that we scored were from two crosses. It’s about understanding when to be more direct, when to get the ball into the box more and when to keep the ball.
“We are building towards next summer when conditions are going to be tough. It’ll be hot in the US so possession is an important part.
“But it’s also about making sure we’re scoring and getting the ball, and numbers of players, into the box.”
Tuchel has not yet told his players the starting line-up but Elliot Anderson could keep his place after impressing in midfield.
While Marc Guehi has overcome a groin problem he picked up against Andorra and could start.
Read the full article here
