Southgate’s impressed by Kane’s team spirit
England boss Gareth Southgate could not have been more impressed by captain Harry Kane’s response to seeing his Golden Boot tilt put on hold.
He has praised the sharpshooter’s collective focus ahead of the World Cup knockout phase.
With progress to the last-16 assured with a match to spare, the Three Lions boss used Thursday’s Group G clash against Belgium as a chance to give squad players a runout and rest star men.
Speculation was rife as to who would be dropped, and skipper Kane was reduced to a watching brief in the 1-0 loss despite scoring five goals against Tunisia and Panama.
“I felt the need to sit with him, but he was brilliant, absolutely brilliant,” Southgate said of the Spurs striker.
“He totally understood 100 per cent team first.
“He said ‘look, I know everyone says I want the Golden Boot – of course it’s something I want to do – but the main thing is getting the team through the first knockout’. He was excellent on that, showed real leadership and understanding of the big picture.”
Kane will come straight back into the side for what Southgate called England’s “biggest match in a decade” against Colombia on Tuesday (7pm).
Southgate is hoping to lead England to their first knockout win since 2006, believing his side will rise to the “fantastic challenge” posed by Colombia and reach the quarter-finals.
“It’s exciting,” Southgate said of the clash. “We’ve got the chance to be the team that changes that (England’s poor record in knockout ties).
“It’s one of the reasons why we’ve done what we did (against Belgium), to give ourselves the best possible opportunity of doing that.
“For me, it’s going to be a brilliant game to be involved in. It looked like Colombia had 30,000-40,000 fans in the stadium. I went to two of their games in Brazil (four years ago) – they were incredible occasions.
“They have some top players, some top attacking players in particular. But we also have some really good players who are full of belief and looking forward to this challenge.”