England avoided an early stumble at the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia on Monday, turning what looked appeared to be a draw against Tunisia in Group G into three points. Level 1-1 late, Harry Kane converted on corner kick, heading home from close range in the 91st minute as the Europeans earned a 2-1 victory. For the first time since the 2006 World Cup in Germany, the English national team starts group stage play with three points. It was a dramatic finish as England pushed during the final half hour to find the winner, and it didn’t look like it was coming, until it did. Ruben Loftus-Cheek played a big role that won’t be talked about enough. His defensive pressure in the final minutes in the corner gave England the corner that would lead to the victory. Though the match was close, it didn’t look like it would be early on as England got chance after chance. But a lack of quality from Raheem Sterling and Jesse Lingard left the result up in the air, giving Tunisia life.
England’s hot start paid off after a few misses though as Kane put the ball away just 11 minutes in for the 1-0 lead. He finished a rebound off a headed attempt from John Stones that appeared to cross the line, and Kane was there to clean up the mess with ease: The clock had ticked past 90 minutes. Harry Kane was there and, in that position, Gareth Southgate could not have wished for any other player to be primed inside the penalty area. An old English routine: the corner, the flick-on, the back-post header and, suddenly, England’s opening game of the World Cup had its happy ending. It was deserved, too, bearing in mind the pattern of the game and the long spells when it had been threatening to finish with a churning sense of déjà vu. England, after all, had managed only five wins in their opening fixtures of every World Cup and European Championship since 1950.
They had outplayed Tunisia without outscoring them and, at 1-1, a draw would have pained Southgate, to say the least, given the number of chances his team had passed up to make it a more straightforward evening. But when has it ever been straightforward with England? Kane had already scored from one corner and the team had played so thrillingly it was bordering on absurd that the game had reached the end of normal time without them being in a winning position. Tunisia’s equaliser had come from a penalty that could be described, at best, as generous – or from England’s perspective, utterly needless – and for a long time it seemed as though Southgate’s players did not have the wit or creativity to turn their superiority into the hard currency of goals.
Enter Kane. His late, twisting header means England can qualify for the knockout stages by defeating Panama in Nizhny Novgorod on Sunday and the final game of Group G against Belgium may not be so relevant. England can therefore leave Volgograd reflecting on a hugely satisfying evening, full of drama and incident, and nobody can possibly argue the result was unjust. England were the better team by some distance, even if they did play with everyone’s nerves.
