{"id":5421,"date":"2026-06-25T06:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T06:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=5421"},"modified":"2026-06-25T06:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T06:16:07","slug":"world-cup-2026-englands-reece-james-and-declan-rice-to-have-fitness-assessed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=5421","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: England&#8217;s Reece James and Declan Rice to have fitness assessed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">England will assess the fitness of Reece James and Declan Rice before their final World Cup group game against Panama.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Rice, 27, limped out of the Boston Stadium after England&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/live\/cx2j74xqy7jt\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">goalless draw against Ghana<\/a> on Tuesday with heavy strapping on his left calf.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sources have indicated that there is no major concern the injury could impact his involvement on a longer-term basis here in the United States.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But it is understood the issue requires assessment and rest before a decision can be made on his availability for Panama on Saturday, with England manager Thomas Tuchel and his staff needing to weigh up the risks of playing him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Arsenal midfielder was also taken off in the game against Croatia with nerve pain in a sore hamstring he has been managing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">James will also require assessment as England approach Saturday&#8217;s match in New Jersey.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 26-year-old completed the full game against Ghana but will be checked by medics over the next 24 hours.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Chelsea captain has a history of injury and his load will be monitored closely.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>England will assess the fitness of Reece James and Declan Rice before their final World Cup group game against Panama.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}