LONDON (AP) — Thomas Tuchel praised Jordan Henderson as “a serial winner” in welcoming him and a resurgent Marcus Rashford back to the England team on Friday.
Tuchel included the pair in his first squad as England coach ahead of World Cup qualifiers against Albania and Latvia at Wembley Stadium.
Both Henderson and Rashford missed out on last summer’s European Championship under then-coach Gareth Southgate and faced uncertain international futures.
But now they're contenders for the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada.
“Jordan is, first of all, a serial winner,” Tuchel said of the Ajax midfielder. “What he brings to every team is leadership, character, personality, energy, make sure that everyone lives by the standards.”
The 34-year-old Henderson helped Liverpool win both the Champions League (2019) and Premier League (2020) before leaving in 2023 for Al-Ettifaq in Saudi Arabia. He lasted just six months there and transferred to Ajax, in part to face European competition in a bid to keep his place in the England team.
“Jordan brings everything — he embodies everything of what we want (for) this team to be,” Tuchel said at a news conference at Wembley.
The German coach seemed equally impressed by Rashford's recent performances with Aston Villa. The 27-year-old forward couldn't get into Ruben Amorim's team at Manchester United, but his loan to Villa has been a success.
“I felt that Marcus had a huge impact in Aston Villa,” Tuchel said.
“The impact was impressive — the physical impact was impressive," he added, "and most importantly the impact against the ball, his work rate, his defensive impact, his hard work in counter pressing, his tracking back on his position was impressive.”
Villa beat Club Brugge 3-0 on Wednesday to advance to the Champions League quarterfinals.
“I had the strong feeling that we should nominate him, we should bring him in to push him to stay on that level, to not fall back in old routines,” Tuchel said. “This camp is to bond with him, of course, to get to know him and push him to stay on exactly that level.”
Rashford joined Villa on loan the day before Europe’s winter transfer window closed, having not played for United since mid-December. Amorim had questioned Rashford’s commitment in training sessions.
Tuchel also included uncapped defenders Myles Lewis-Skelly and Dan Burn in his 26-man squad. Arsenal’s Lewis-Skelly is 18, while Newcastle’s Burn gets his first call-up at the age of 32.
England hosts Albania next Friday and Latvia three days later at Wembley Stadium.
“Everyone who is with us on this journey in the first camp is a contender for the World Cup,” Tuchel said.
While it's just the first step, he added: “It is important to be in the first camp.”
Tuchel, who led Chelsea to the Champions League title in 2021, was hired to get England over the line. The men's team's lone World Cup title was in 1966.
Under Southgate, England reached the semifinals of the 2018 World Cup and back-to-back finals at the Euros. Spain beat England 2-1 in the Euro 2024 final.
“We only have six camps, we only have 60 days. We need to take care of every single day and make sure that we are on point,” Tuchel said.
Harry Kane will remain the team captain, Tuchel confirmed.
The playing style will reflect the Premier League, he added.
“We should be brave enough to play like an England squad and should not try to copy other nations, other styles too much,” he said. "It should reflect the values of the country and of the strongest league in the world, which is the Premier League.
“We will try to increase our rhythm in our game, increase the intensity in our game,” he added, “and we will try to do it of course in a crash course from Monday and unleash the potential for Friday.”
Goalkeepers: Dean Henderson (Crystal Palace), Jordan Pickford (Everton), Aaron Ramsdale (Southampton), James Trafford (Burnley)
Defenders: Dan Burn (Newcastle), Levi Colwill (Chelsea), Marc Guehi (Crystal Palace), Reece James (Chelsea), Ezri Konsa (Aston Villa), Myles Lewis-Skelly (Arsenal), Tino Livramento (Newcastle), Jarell Quansah (Liverpool), Kyle Walker (AC Milan)
Midfielders: Jude Bellingham (Real Madrid), Eberechi Eze (Crystal Palace), Curtis Jones (Liverpool), Jordan Henderson (Ajax), Cole Palmer (Chelsea), Morgan Rogers (Aston Villa), Declan Rice (Arsenal)
Forwards: Jarrod Bowen (West Ham), Anthony Gordon (Newcastle), Phil Foden (Manchester City), Harry Kane (Bayern Munich), Marcus Rashford (Aston Villa), Dominic Solanke (Tottenham)
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Eintracht Frankfurt's Hugo Ekitike, left, duels for the ball with Ajax's Jordan Henderson during the Europa League round of 16 first leg soccer match between Ajax and Eintracht Frankfurt at the Johan Cruyff ArenA in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Thursday, March 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Maurice van Steen)
Aston Villa's Marcus Rashford applauds huis side fans after the end of the English Premier League soccer match between Brentford and Aston Villa at the Gtech Community stadium in London, Saturday, March 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson, a political legend whose quick wit bridged partisan gaps in the years before today’s political acrimony, has died. He was 93.
Simpson died early Friday after struggling to recover from a broken hip in December, according to a statement from his family and the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, a group of museums where he was a board member for 56 years.
Along with former Vice President Dick Cheney, Simpson was a towering Republican figure from Wyoming, the least-populated state. Unlike Cheney, Simpson was famous for his humor.
“We have two political parties in this country, the Stupid Party and the Evil Party. I belong to the Stupid Party,” was among Simpson’s many well-known quips.
A political moderate by current standards, Simpson’s three terms as senator from 1979 to 1997 covered the Republican Party’s rejuvenation under President Ronald Reagan. Simpson played a key role rallying GOP senators around the party’s legislative agenda as a top Senate leader during that time.
Simpson was better known for holding his own views, though, with sometimes caustic certainty. A deficit hawk with sharp descriptions of people who relied on government assistance, Simpson supported abortion rights — an example of moderation that contributed to his fade in the GOP.
His Democratic friends included Robert Reich, labor secretary under President Bill Clinton, and Norman Mineta, transportation secretary under President George W. Bush.
Simpson and Mineta met as Boy Scouts when Mineta and his family were imprisoned as Japanese-Americans in the Heart Mountain War Relocation Center near Simpson’s hometown of Cody, Wyoming, during World War II.
After leaving politics, both promoted awareness of the incarceration of some 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry in camps during the war. Mineta, who died in 2022, recalled that Simpson once was asked what was the biggest difference between them as a Republican and a Democrat.
“Alan thought about it and he said, ‘Well, I wear size 15 shoes and he wears a size 8 and a half,’” Mineta replied, according to the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation.
In 2010, President Barack Obama tasked Simpson with co-leading a debt-reduction commission that developed a plan to save $4 trillion through tax hikes and spending cuts. The plan lacked support for serious consideration by Congress.
At 6-foot-7, Simpson was literally a towering figure — tallest on record in the Senate until Alabama Sen. Luther Strange, who is 6-foot-9, took office in 2017.
Big as Simpson’s shoes were, he had huge ones to fill politically.
His father, Milward Simpson, was a governor, U.S. senator and state legislator. His mother, Lorna Kooi Simpson, was president of the Red Cross in Cody and on the local planning commission.
“I saw Dad loved politics and the law, and I wanted to do that,” Simpson once said.
Simpson was born in Denver in 1931. After a childhood of reckless gun-shooting and vandalism in Cody that put him in danger and in trouble with the law, he graduated from Cody High School in 1949 and the University of Wyoming in 1954.
Also that year he married Ann Schroll, of Greybull, Wyoming, and joined the U.S. Army, where he served in the Fifth Infantry Division and the Second Armored “Hell on Wheels” Division in Germany.
After leaving the Army, Simpson got a law degree from the University of Wyoming in 1958 and joined his father’s law practice, where he worked for the next 19 years. He was elected to the Wyoming House in 1964 and served there until his election to the U.S. Senate in 1976.
A football and basketball athlete at the University of Wyoming, Simpson fondly described politics as a “contact sport.”
“I’ve been called everything,” he said in 2003. “What the hell. If you don’t like the combat, get out.”
Simpson’s candor made him popular with voters. He also was known as a well-read, hardworking and sometimes hard-nosed politician involved in immigration, veterans’ affairs and environmental issues.
He served on the Immigration Subcommittee and the Veterans Affairs Committee, among others.
Simpson opposed sentences of life without parole for juveniles and said he supported review of criminal sentences after a period of time.
“When they get to be 30 or 40 and they been in the clink for 20 years, or 30 or 40, and they have learned how to read and how to do things, why not?” he told The Associated Press in 2009.
By 1995, he’d had enough of the Senate and decided not to run again.
“Part of me said I could do this for another three or four years but not six,” he said at the time. “The old fire in the belly is out. The edge is off.”
Others of his family in politics and government included his older brother, Pete, a University of Wyoming historian who served in the Wyoming House and was the unsuccessful Republican nominee for governor in 1986. Alan Simpson’s son Colin was speaker of the Wyoming House, and his nephew Milward Simpson directed the state parks department.
After leaving the Senate, Simpson taught about politics and the media at Harvard University and the University of Wyoming. In speeches he often urged college students to be politically involved.
In 2022, President Joe Biden awarded Simpson the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Simpson is survived by his wife, Ann; his brother Pete Simpson; sons Colin Simpson and William Simpson; and daughter, Susan Simpson Gallagher.
FILE - President George H. Bush hands a pen to Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, left, after he signed into law an immigration bill, Nov. 29, 1990, in Washington at the White House. From left often Thornburgh are Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., Rep. Bruce Morrison, D-Conn., Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill. The last extensive package came under President Ronald Reagan in 1986, and President George H.W. Bush signed a more limited effort four years later. Simpson has died at age 93. (AP Photo/Marcy Nighswander, File)
FILE - Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee confer prior to voting to recommend the nomination of Supreme Court nominee Sandra Day O'Connor, to the full Senate for confirmation, Sept. 15, 1981, Washington. From left, Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., Sen. Robert Dole, R-Kan., Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., second from right. Biden knows better than anyone the unexpected turns a Supreme Court nomination can take after it lands on Capitol Hill. Simpson has died at age 93. (AP Photo/Ira Schwarz, File)
FILE - Former Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming, speaks during a news conference, Sept. 12, 2011, at the National Press Club in Washington. Simpson has died at age 93. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
FILE - President Joe Biden awards the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to retired U.S. senator from Wyoming Alan Simpson during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, July 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, file)
FILE - President Joe Biden awards the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson at the White House in Washington, July 7, 2022. Simpson has died at age 93. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
