KANE REACTION LIFTS A NATION
England reach final as Harry pounces after penalty save
AET; 1-1 AFTER 90 MINUTES IT was inevitable if they were going to reach their first final in 55 years they were going to miss a penalty somewhere down the line.
But thank goodness after Harry Kane saw his spot-kick saved he had the presence of mind to push the rebound into the empty net.
Kasper Schmeichel – the hero here in the FA Cup for Leicester and almost again for Denmark last night – was beaten. And a rather tired England march on to Sunday’s final hoping to have time to rediscover the freshness they had brought into this game.
It used to be fashionable to pretend to play for England when kids had a kickabout after school.
Perhaps it will be again after this summer – the greedy squabble of European club football less of an attraction than the purer enjoyment of the international game.
Either way, when you dreamt of playing for England, you dreamt of playing the football the Three
Lions hit Denmark with in an exhilarating opening 15 minutes.
Darting runs past hopeless halfhearted tackles; full-blooded but fair tackles to show early on who’s boss; and not being afraid to have a go at goal.
Raheem Sterling was inches away from converting Kane’s delicious curling cross in only the sixth minute and soon afterwards his fourth direct run at the Danish defence caused chaos that was eventually cleared.
But this was Wembley, not the playground, and a hideous reality
check coming. For the first time at Euro 2020, England were starting to make defensive mistakes. Simple passes went astray.
Jordan Pickford rolled the ball straight out to Mikkel Damsgaard.
A few tackles were mistimed. Luke Shaw untidily tangled with Andreas Christensen 25 yards from goal.
Damsgaard stepped up and Pickford’s fingertips were not enough to keep it out of the top corner.
Southgate has preached all tournament about how the measure of his team has to be the way they bounce back.
So when Schmeichel somehow stopped Sterling scoring from another brilliant Kane cross, the nation could be forgiven for sinking into another bout of semifinal what-iffery. Then a minute later Bukayo Saka broke down the right, his cross hit Simon Kjaer and bounced into the Denmark net.
Wembley erupted. Nine minutes to get themselves out of their mess. Was this what Southgate had meant?
But Denmark showed first in the second half, Damsgaard again testing Pickford and this time the goalkeeper was equal to it.
At the other end, Harry Maguire had a header clawed away from just inside his post by Schmeichel.
Throughout his selections, Southgate has highlighted the importance of those on the bench.
The England manager called them his “finishers” , adopting a term more common in rugby. Inevitably, it was Jack Grealish, fast anointed the playmaker of the people, who got the nod first to come on.
England shouted for a penalty when Kane was sent sprawling in the box by Christian Norgaard butVAR disagreed.
Then Kalvin Phillips’ low drive went just inches wide.
England were getting the better of it as extra-time loomed.
But after six minutes of frantic injury-time, Kane failed to connect to Grealish’s cross in the last chance of normal time and Wembley was in for its second late night in as many days.
Southgate had told his men to rewrite their own history. So when Sterling was tripped and even when Kane missed his spotkick, he was always going to knock in the rebound.
It turns out once again they were listening.