England to play extra World Cup match as Thomas Tuchel makes unprecedented decision

England are set to break new ground by becoming the first nation to play an extra fixture during their World Cup campaign.

The Three Lions kick off their World Cup campaign against familiar foes Croatia at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas on Wednesday night.

With the amount of participants increased to 48 for the first time, an extra round has been added which will see the final 32 teams in the first knockout phase.

But England are already poised to add another game to their schedule. According to reports from the BBC, England are in talks over a friendly game with MLS side Sporting Kansas City.

Discussions are ongoing and the friendly is not yet locked in but the idea is for England to take on the two-time MLS Cup winners in between the World Cup matches with Croatia and Ghana.

England have already faced off against Miami FC when they were based in West Palm Beach, with Ivan Toney scoring a hat-trick in a 6-0 win a day on from the Costa Rica friendly victory.

They are now based in Kansas City for the entirety of the tournament, training at Swope Soccer Village.

Asked about potentially playing a behind-closed-doors game, Thomas Tuchel said: "It is true that we try to play an in-house match after the match against Croatia. It is simply to use the time.

"We have many days in between the matches and we can give the players who have not played so many minutes tomorrow just a load and an actual match load and not only from training.

"We did this after the match against Costa Rica and I think we will do it one last time on the day after the Croatia game."

England star could get perfect opportunity in friendly fixture

A country has never played a friendly during a World Cup tournament but Tuchel sees great benefit in adding one more game in in order to maintain the sharpness of those who don't get a high amount of minutes against Croatia.

It could also be the perfect opportunity to get Chelsea defender Trevoh Chalobah up to speed after he was called up as a late replacement for Tino Livramento after the Newcastle full-back suffered a hamstring injury in training.

The issue leaves Livramento on the sidelines for four to five weeks, ultimately leading to England deciding to send him home.

Chalobah was brought in as the the immediate replacement for Livramento, having worked with Tuchel at Chelsea before he tried to sign him for Bayern Munich.

Tuchel stated: "He was of course disappointed and so were we. He was a key player, in good shape and available for both sides for us as a full-back.

"We called Trevoh Chalobah because then we free up Jarell Quansah as full-back on both sides and Djed Spence can play both sides as full-back, so Trevoh comes as a centre back alternative and gives us full coverage in the back four."

England take on Ghana next Tuesday before concluding their group stage campaign against Panama on Saturday 27 June.