From today’s Times:
So now, after the sheer psychological torture of this extraordinary victory, England head to Mexico City, and what is perhaps the most daunting, physically challenging encounter they have ever faced at a major tournament.
Reflect on the drama and excitement of what we witnessed here in Atlanta, of course. Celebrate the brilliance of Harry Kane, a captain, a national saviour.
But the minds of Thomas Tuchel and his players will have to switch quickly to what comes next, to a game that hands a home advantage to Mexico so significant it almost compromises the integrity of this World Cup.
The FA would rather not even discuss the obvious physiological difficulties of playing at 7,220 feet without being able to prepare at high altitude. England players set out to win their group knowing it would determine their route to the final in New Jersey on July 19, and it is their intention to remain positive.
Australian 10,000m runner Ron Clarke had to be revived through the use of an oxygen mask after collapsing from altitude sickness in Mexico City at the 1968 Olympics
But this is now England’s reality. They play Mexico at the Azteca Stadium in the early hours of Monday in conditions where so many elite athletes before them have simply wilted; in some cases almost died.
However much Fifa might protest, England’s round-of-16 game is not being played on a level playing field. It is on an elevated one, with Mexico not just having the benefit of being fully acclimatised to air with 20 per cent less oxygen but also an extra day to recover, having beaten Ecuador on Tuesday, and two fewer flights than England need to take to even get there.
Some might respond by questioning the wisdom of England returning after each game to their training base in Kansas City. But the FA’s sports scientists know only too well that a direct flight from here to Mexico, four nights before this weekend’s game, would amount to the worst possible preparation. In what peer-reviewed studies describe as the “dead zone”, it is between three and nine days that high altitude bites hardest. The only sensible option was to go back to Kansas and travel to Mexico later in the week.
As previously mentioned, the FA is reluctant to discuss exactly how it intends to tackle the one game England have to play in Mexico City. But after various conversations with different people over the past couple of months, The Times now has some understanding of its thinking.
Altitude tents at the team hotel might have been an option; what they call the sleep-high, train-low approach. But when oxygen therapy is such a central part of the FA medical team’s recovery strategy, in the most congested World Cup in history, starving the players of oxygen on the precious few nights they have between games is not a sensible approach.
The decision to delay their arrival until Friday evening is what some inside the FA describe as the best of a list of bad options.
Scientific research concludes that, ideally, an athlete who plans to compete at altitude travels two or three weeks in advance. If that is not possible, which of course it isn’t during a football tournament, then the idea is to arrive as late as possible. Six hours ideally, or between 18 and 24 hours, with 48 hours the absolute limit before respiratory fatigue becomes a serious problem.
Because of Fifa’s tournament regulations, and the requirement that every team arrives on the eve of every match, option one is ruled out.
But the FA has spoken to a number of experts, including specialists at the British Olympic Association, and taken into consideration other factors, such as travel fatigue and sleep deprivation. The first night at altitude is usually heavily impacted, so England want their players to have what they hope is a better second night’s sleep before the game. Flying on Friday, rather than Saturday, is also their preference.
But the altitude nevertheless remains something that England’s players will struggle with compared with their opponents.
As they demonstrated again on Tuesday, Mexico are a dynamic side. They organise themselves in a 4-3-3 formation and rely on a quick transition, which is how left winger Julián Quiñones scored their first goal of the tournament, against South Africa. Alongside Roberto Alvarado and 17-year-old Gilberto Mora, Quiñones is one of Mexico’s most dangerous players — whoever plays right back for England will have a challenge on the night.
On Tuesday night, television pundits in Mexico were cooing over what they said was the best Mexico performance they had seen in years. “Connected, forceful, plugged in,” was how they described the display at the Azteca, while up on screen was the list of Mexico’s 12-match unbeaten run, including ten wins and two draws, heading into the round of 16. “It gives you belief!” one pundit said, “step by step” cautioned another. In the national newspaper, Record, on Wednesday morning the lead article was already looking ahead to a possible meeting with Brazil in the quarter-finals. “We can’t get carried away thinking England will be un flan (“a pushover”) in the round of 16 but …” the article read. “The chance of beating them is very high.”
More ominous, however, is how well Mexico cope when playing in the rarified atmosphere of the Azteca. They cover as much ground as teams playing at sea level, collectively running 113.5km to Ecuador’s 105km this week. Indeed, in 88 competitive games at the Azteca Mexico have only been beaten twice.
Like Mexico, England are a team that rely heavily on speed and athleticism. The statistics, particularly those that measure the number of sprints completed over the course of 90 minutes, prove as much. Mexico believe they can beat England. The phrase “¿Y si sí?” has been adopted by the Mexican fans as their slogan for this World Cup, which literally translated means “what if, yes?” but has more purpose than that, like “why not us?”, the Mexican version almost of “yes, we can”. At the Azteca, Mexico have shown they can use the carnival atmosphere to fly out of the blocks in the first 20 minutes — think Liverpool at Anfield on the best days under Jürgen Klopp — although the flip side is they have been less impressive later on in games, perhaps as the fatigue sets in.
World Cup newsletter Daily insights from our experts at football’s biggest tournament. Sign up with one click
History tells us, however, that it will be far from easy to play like that, whatever advances have been made in terms of sports science.
In 1986, England had the benefit of playing the entire World Cup in Mexico. Learning the hard lessons of the 1970 tournament, they held a high-altitude training camp in Colorado, flying out to the United States in early May. There were also warm-up games in Los Angeles and Vancouver.
Then, however, there was a group-stage base in Monterrey, which sits at just 1,770 feet, before they first met Paraguay and then Argentina at the Azteca. The first game they won, the second they obviously found more difficult, with Peter Reid saying it was like “running against the wind” when he tried, in vain, to chase down an advancing Diego Maradona.
Diego Maradona dribbles past three English defenders during the 1986 World Cup quarterfinal.
Marking Maradona was a dizzying task for England’s defenders at the Azteca in 1986
At the 1968 Olympics the impact was more obvious. While athletics world records tumbled in the sprint and jumping events, distance runners suffered against African athletes used to living and training at altitude. In 1965 the Australian Ron Clarke had become the first man to break 28 minutes for 10,000m, clocking what was then a staggering time of 27:39.4. Despite training in the Alps prior to the Games, he finished sixth in Mexico and in 29:44, collapsing after the race and very nearly dying in hospital of severe altitude sickness.
Put it this way, Tuchel will not be complaining about hydration breaks this weekend, because England will need all the help they can get to beat Mexico in Mexico; a victory, even after climbing out of the hole they found themselves in here in Atlanta, that would very much rank among the national team’s finest at a major tournament.
