England to face heatwave as well as Panama in second World Cup game

England can assure their passage to the last 16 of the World Cup by beating Panama but they will have to acclimatise to unusually hot temperatures in Nizhny Novgorod.

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It is expected to be 31C at 3pm local time when the match kicks off and it will likely feel hotter inside the stadium with its glass-panelled roof.

The Panama team, used to the heat and humidity in their home country, trained inside the stadium in the heat of the day on Saturday, some wearing long sleeves. England players are liable to find the conditions more challenging.

It is understood that it was flagged up within the Football Association that it would make sense to prepare somewhere hot, rather than in Repino, a small town on the Gulf of Finland where temperatures have been around 16-18C this week.

Southgate was warned about the potential issue of the heat in Nizhny Novgorod and Volgograd where England played their first group game. But he thought the benefits of the training base and its location, 45 minutes outside St Petersburg, outweighed the drawbacks.