England players take ‘digital pills’ to measure internal body temperature

The aim is to see how players will deal with hot conditions during next summer’s World Cup

England players have consumed ‘digital pills’ during their training camp this week, it has been reported, in a bid to see how they will deal with hot conditions during the 2026 World Cup.

Thomas Tuchel’s players are currently in Girona, Spain, preparing for a European qualifier against Andorra on 7 June, which gives way to a friendly with Senegal on 10 June.

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As part of their early preparations for next summer’s World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico, England players have been training in heated tents this week, carrying out fitness tests on exercise bikes.

And another element of that preparation has seen them taking biometric pills, according to The Times.

Per a report, the tablets contain digital technology that measures players’ internal body temperatures, and one test saw squad members pedal to the point of exhaustion before FA sports scientists remotely scanned the pills.

Those scans produced information on the players’ body temperatures and the time needed to cool down.

“It was taking those tablets on the bike, and then you had to be on the bike for about 45 minutes,” said Crystal Palace midfielder Eberechi Eze. “You just had to keep going. They monitored your heart rate, they monitored your actual temperature and stuff like that, to get more understanding.

Eberechi Eze, pictured in training for England, opened up on the ‘digital pill’ process (Getty)

“Of course it was quite difficult, and 45 minutes is a long time on a bike, but it was something that was definitely helpful, and I think it was a bit of insight into yourself and how you will cope in those situations.

“[The tablet] was something that they would use to actually monitor your core temperature, so they would be understanding how hot you were while you were doing the training, which was interesting.”

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Chelsea’s Cole Palmer added: “It was tough. It was 35, 36 degrees Celsius inside the tents, and we had to get to a certain watts or something on a bike and maintain it – for 45 minutes.”

In Dallas and Monterrey, two World Cup match locations for 2026, the average daily temperatures in early July are expected to be 35 and 34.4 degrees Celsius respectively. Six other venues are expected to have average temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius.

The World Cup was last held in the US in 1994, and temperatures during matches regularly exceeded 37 degrees Celsius, owing to a heatwave.

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