Kane fires England into finals
Harry Kane led the fight back as England beat Croatia 2-1 to book their place in the finals of the Uefa Nations League.
Croatia, who beat England in the 2018 World Cup semifinals, looked set to repeat that feat after Andrej Kramaric’s deflected goal gave them a second-half lead at Wembley Stadium in London yesterday.
But Kane set up Jesse Lingard’s equaliser and got the winner by sliding to poke in Ben Chilwell’s free-kick in the 85th minute.
England finish top of League A Group 4 on seven points, one more than Spain and three ahead of Croatia, who were relegated to the competition’s second tier.
‘‘We kept the confidence, we kept the spirit and the togetherness that we’d taken from the World Cup and we brought it today,’’ Lingard said. ‘‘We stuck together through the highs and the lows and we’ll now take it on to another semifinal.’’
Croatia’s 3-2 win over Spain last Friday left all three teams with a chance to win the group.
England made a fast start with Raheem Sterling denied by goalkeeper Lovre Kalinic and Kane missing a trio of chances – heading wide before Tin Jedvaj blocked his shot at the goal-line and Kalinic stopped his rebound effort. Kalinic then kept it goalless at the half by palming away Chilwell’s shot from a corner.
Sterling had another chance just after the restart but scuffed his shot, which Kalinic easily smothered.
England paid for their misses moments later when Kramaric made several twisting moves in the area before his shot deflected off Eric Dier and over goalkeeper Jordan Pickford.
The away goal meant England now needed to win the game to avoid being relegated and manager Gareth Southgate brought on Dele Alli, Lingard and Jadon Sancho to bolster the attack.
The moves paid off with 12 minutes left when Kane’s poke in front of goal was tapped into the open net by Lingard.
Kane then capped the comeback a short time later by getting to the end of Chilwell’s free kick.
‘‘We were disappointed we didn’t take our chances but in games like this against big teams, you just have to stay calm and try to play,’’ Kane said.
‘‘We were creating chances and thankfully Jesse got on the end of one and we really pushed off from there and got the second.
‘‘We showed character, we stayed calm and deserved to win. It feels good.’’
England join Portugal in qualifying for next (northern) summer’s finals, with the final two places still to be filled.