Kane makes it perfect record for England
The England juggernaut rolls on through Euro 2020 qualifying with 14 goals now in their three group games and, at the wheel, Harry Kane, whose hat-trick elevated him above Sir Geoff Hurst in the all-time goalscorers’ list and almost halfway to immortality.
That is the quarter-century of England goals now for Kane, achieved at an average of one every 123 minutes, a better strike rate than Wayne Rooney whose total of 53 remains the gold standard. These are the days, and BulIn garia are the kind of opponents, when the potential record-breakers have to fill their boots and Kane did that with a poacher’s finish for the first and two penalties as he earned his 40th cap.
At the same stage of his England career, Rooney had just 14 goals, indicating that if Kane can stay fit and in the team for another five years, then he will be the second Englishman to break the 50-goal mark for his country.
Having put five past the Czech Republic and Montenegro last season, this was another England Euro 2020 qualifying demolition job and one can only assume that Kosovo, second in the group now, will be more of a test in Southampton on Tuesday.
As for Kane, Gareth Southgate would say later that there is a reason his captain never looks like missing from the penalty spot, such is the scope of his preparation. “Supreme temperament and technique,” was how Southgate described it, honed over hours and hours of practice. “We stood and watched him [Kane] take penalties for about 20 minutes yesterday,” he said. “And when you watch the process that he goes through, he just gives himself every chance of succeeding by that deliberate practice.”
Southgate’s team changed during the course of the game but he remains a rebellious type. Kieran Trippier ahead of Trent Alexander-Arnold. Ross Barkley ahead of James Maddison. Declan Rice ahead of Harry Winks. Marcus Rashford ahead of Jadon Sancho. Trippier ahead of Aaron Wan-Bissaka, for that matter. He is by no means a manager who changes his mind quickly and one can only think that he puts a lot of store in what he sees behind the closed doors of his training sessions.
the end, Mason Mount did make his senior debut as a replacement for Henderson and Sancho came on for Ra- heem Sterling, the afternoon’s other goalscorer and an outstanding performer. Southgate’s qualifying campaign is comfortable enough that he is moulding the team for next summer already, when he says there will be “four or five players” who can be certain of their places while the rest of the team remains very much up for grabs.
He pointed out that in the autumn of 2017, Harry Maguire and Jordan Pickford were new England caps and Trippier only had one, but come the following summer all were mainstays of the World Cup team.
“I think we’ve always got to have that open mind,” he said, although after the semi-final in Russia the challenge is different now. Southgate listed the group of eight elite European teams to which he believes England belong with the fluency of a man who clearly thinks about it a lot. “Ahead of the World Cup we were having to rebuild confidence in the team and trial players who we felt could play the way we wanted to play,” he said. “We’re not having to trial players now, we’re able to select players who fit into what we do and we think can take us onto another level. We’ve got a platform and now we’ve got to sharpen our game in all aspects.”
Rashford was the key to breaking Bulgaria open in the second half, winning the first of the two penalties scored by Kane. Against a nation ranked 60th in the world, there was a lot to breakdown.
Sterling operated behind a partnership of Kane and Rashford, and the Manchester City man was at his most dangerous drifting right, where he won the first penalty.
In the second half, England pressed higher up the pitch and the gaps began to appear. They finished the game with 68 per cent possession and 17 attempts on the Bulgaria goal having tended before the break to pass around the edges of their opposition. The visitors had looked solid until they gave up a first goal with one too many attempts to play out from the back.
Their goalkeeper, Plamen Iliev, gave the ball to Georgi Sarmov and got it back sooner than he anticipated. His pass to Vasil Bozhikov, a centre-back
still in his own area when the ball was sent in his direction, was woefully inadequate. Sterling stole it from him and put the ball on a plate for Kane to score.
Kane’s first penalty was won by Rashford whose running had caused Nikolay Bodurov problems in the first half. This time Bodurov bought Rashford’s feint to cross and then caught the striker’s leg as the latter doubled back. Kane dispatched that penalty and created the third goal for Sterling after Rashford had slipped the England captain in behind.
The hat-trick penalty for Kane was won from another hapless foul on him, this time from the substitute, Kristian Dimitrov. Kane never looked like missing for his sixth goal in five games for club and country. Replaced by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, his first England cap since March 2018, Kane was generous about the chances created for him by Sterling and Rashford.
“I’m in a good place,” he said. “I feel fit and strong. I had a good summer away, about four weeks away which is the most I’ve had in a while. I was able to refresh and recharge.”
Of course, Hurst may now have one fewer goal for England than Kane but he remains part of the country’s only World Cup-winning team. “We’ve sat here and spoke about it for the last 10, 20 years and longer and it hasn’t happened,” Kane said later when asked the eternal question about winning something. England have not lost in 42 qualifiers going back to October 2009, and you have to go back to November 2007 for the last defeat in a meaningful qualifier. The challenge next summer is the same as it ever was.
If Kane can stay fit and in the team for five more years he will surely score 50 goals for his country