England arrive in Brazil

 

The England World Cup squad arrived in Brazil after flying to South America from Florida following Saturday’s goalless draw with Honduras.

Coach Gary Neville led the party down the steps at Rio de Janeiro airport with Gary Cahill the first player to depart the plane after the eight-and-a-half-hour flight from Fort Lauderdale.

The squad then travelled by coach for around an hour to their accommodation in Rio – the Royal Tulip Hotel where security was tight – and they will spend the remainder of Sunday settling into their base for the tournament.

“Team spirit is very, very good. It’s been good since the moment we met up in Portugal.”

As he got off the plane, boss Roy Hodgson told Sky Sports News, “Team spirit is very, very good. It’s been good since the moment we met up in Portugal.

“We have always had our focus, of course, on the day we would arrive in Brazil and perhaps even more focus on Manaus where we are playing on Saturday.

“But now we have got a full week to prepare here, and that will be very useful to us because we are getting more and more acclimatised to conditions.

“We have got one further week to make sure when we kick off in Manaus we will be 100 per cent ready.”

Hodgson will conduct an open training session on Monday morning followed by a closed work-out on Tuesday morning.

The squad will train again on Wednesday morning before flying to Manaus on Thursday ahead of their Group D opener against Italy on Saturday.

There will be a part-open training session in Manaus on Thursday afternoon and a pre-match news conference on Friday afternoon which will be followed by another part-open training session.

England will then kick-off their World Cup campaign against Italy at the Arena Amazonia late on Saturday evening.

And goalkeeper Joe Hart believes the England squad are in good shapefollowing their pre-World Cup training camp in Miami.