TUNISIA .... 1 ENGLAND.2
Boss Southgate hails the togetherness of his last-gasp heroes
ENGLAND manager Gareth Southgate praised his players’ fighting spirit after last night’s 2-1 stoppage-time victory. Southgate’s side were electrifying in the opening stages, racing into an early lead as Harry Kane scored his first goal in a major international tournament. And the captain’s last-gasp winner after Ferjani Sassi had equalised with a dubious penalty sparked frantic scenes of celebration as England got their World Cup campaign off to a winning start.
Yet they laboured during periods of the second half as Tunisia sat deep in the hope of holding out for a draw. And Southgate insisted it was the team’s togetherness that ensured they finally battered down the Tunisian door.
‘The way we kept playing, even though the clock was running down we stayed patient, waited for chances and deserved the win,’ said the England manager.
‘We made so many clear-cut chances, had total control of the game in the second half, were strong on set plays all night and I’m really pleased. Even if we drew I would have been proud of the performance.
‘In the end you wear teams down and good teams score late goals.
‘It’s a night where it’s hard to highlight individuals.
‘The squad has been brilliant. Team selection was difficult, the subs had a good impact.
‘We’ve got this result over the past few weeks and that’s because of everyone. We’ve given ourselves a great platform to build on.
‘So much to build on but there’s a lot of work still to do.
‘We knew what a tough test Tunisia would be. Panama will be disappointed with today’s result, so we’ve got to keep on performing and enjoy tonight.’ Asked to comment on match-winner Kane’s double, Southgate added: ‘He’s a top, top striker.
‘I’m delighted for him because if he didn’t score then we’d be asking questions.
‘Great, we’ve got him in the team and he took his goals really, really well.’
England captain Kane chose not to highlight his own display and instead concentrated on the importance of the result, given Belgium’s emphatic win over Paraguay in the other group game.
‘It’s massive, I’m so proud of the lads,’ said Kane. ‘I thought we played well, especially in the first half. Credit to the lads. We kept going. We’ve spoken a lot about togetherness. It’s nice to see it working on the pitch. We’re happy tonight.’
England’s victory would have felt even sweeter following a string of frustrating decisions from referee Wilmar Rodan.
The penalty awarded to Tunisia that allowed them to equalise looked soft after Fakhreddine Ben Youssef appeared to run straight into Kyle Walker’s arm, before Kane had two strong penalty claims rebuffed by the Colombian official.
Rodan refused to pass the spot-kick claims on to VAR and Kane added: ‘I’ve not seen their penalty back but it didn’t look like one and there could have been a couple of penalties for us.
‘They were trying to grab hold and stop us running, so maybe there was a bit of justice at the end.
‘We were just itching to play. The World Cup is tough. I thought we did really well.’
England midfielder Jordan Henderson could not contain his excitement at the result and added: ‘It’s a massive boost, a massive bonus, we kept going.
‘We kept fighting and got the late goal and a big win. I felt positive at 1-1. The pace did drop
off a bit. We had to keep creating chances.
‘We didn’t play as well in the second half but they defended deep. Winning the first game is always massive.’
While the result and the victory was the important part of the evening for Southgate’s side, there will still be concerns that the pace dropped in the second half.
England were laboured and pedestrian — especially in comparison to their sparkling showing in the opening period.
But defender Harry Maguire added: ‘It was tough out there. They were a tough opponent. We should have been out of sight at half-time but we stuck to our shape, made sure we didn’t concede. We knew we’d get a chance and Harry has done it again.
‘It was really warm. We wanted to start well and we did. We missed clear-cut chances, which you don’t get at this level very often.
‘We had to dig deep in the second half. They changed their shape to match us up but we knew we’d get more chances and it’s come right at the death.
‘You can sniff Harry out for the whole game but you know he’s going to get that chance and he’ll put it away.
‘I felt there were a couple of nervy passes early on but it’s a big occasion, the first game at this high pressure and you’ve just got to really focus.
‘No doubt it was a massive game. We knew beforehand that we needed three points, following Belgium’s result, and now we can build on it with another big game (Panama) coming up.’