England win their first match in a tougher than needed to be match
England started their world cup campaign in a match that was already heightened up with Belgium beating Panama earlier in the day. England's first match took place in Volgograd in the south of Russia near the Caucasus mountains. The city has a history going back to before the Second World War and became famous for one of history's greatest battles, today it became the setting for the start of England's 2018 World Cup finals campaign. England was going into the tournament with the nightmare of going out to Iceland in the last 16 of Euro 2016 in the minds of fans, pundits and players. This is the first match of their group stage games. The next one is Panama on Sunday, and then the last game in the Premier League derby against Belgium. This is the second time England has played against Tunisia in the World Cup. The last time these two played was again their opening match though it was in France 98.
England was lined up in a 3-5-2 formation which has been Gareth Southgate's preferred formation throughout qualifying and the warm-up friendlies. The team for England was Jordan Pickford in goal, Kyle Walker, John Stones and Harry Maguire in the defence, Ashley Young, Jesse Lingard, Jordan Henderson, Dele Alli, and Keiran Trippier in midfield, and Raheem Sterling playing alongside captain Harry Kane up-front. And on the bench, England could go on the pace of Marcus Rashford or the fighting spirit of Jamie Vardy, if a change of tactics is needed. They used the formation to its best use early on as they dominated the match with chances coming in all over the pitch.
The first big chance they had was when Lingard struck the ball towards goal 3 minutes in, but it got saved by Tunisia's starting goalkeeper's foot. Then ten minutes into the match, England got the goal they deserved as Harry Kane scored off a corner after a brilliant save to keep John Stones' initial attempt out of the net. Things got better for England a couple of minutes later when Tunisia was forced to make a desperate substitute as their goalkeeper went off with an injury to his shoulder. England kept going with two more chances from Lingard and Henderson, but they just couldn't convert. Then Tunisia got a penalty off an elbow from Kyle Walker, Ferjani Sassi converted the kick with a little bit of help from Pickford's fingertips. England tried to get the lead back before halftime, but they couldn't reach another goal.
At halftime, it was the feeling of same old England as they weren't scoring on chances and were not showing their abilities and putting so-called lesser opponents away. Also, there was a debate on VAR. As England was not given a penalty on what looked like a clear penalty as Kane was brought down similar to a rugby tackle.
The second half was comfortable England as they had much of the possession but just couldn't get it near the box tough the commentators were saying it could be because of the heat and humidity. So Southgate decided to get more pace in the team by replacing Sterling with Marcus Rashford with 20 minutes to go in the match. It seemed to be what England needed to make the game easier to control for them, and they needed another goal, and they knew that Tunisia wouldn't be able to recover quickly. Southgate decided another pace player was required, so he took off Alli who looked like he had an injury and brought on Ruben Loftus-Cheek. Nothing was working, and it looked like it was going to be two points thrown away until stoppage time when England got another corner. Kane scored the winner from that and Tunisia didn't have the energy or believe in winning the game.
At the end of the game, it was a relief for England, and it was the first time they won their first game in the tournament since Germany 2006. Next up for England is Panama in Nizhny Novgorod on Sunday.
England was lined up in a 3-5-2 formation which has been Gareth Southgate's preferred formation throughout qualifying and the warm-up friendlies. The team for England was Jordan Pickford in goal, Kyle Walker, John Stones and Harry Maguire in the defence, Ashley Young, Jesse Lingard, Jordan Henderson, Dele Alli, and Keiran Trippier in midfield, and Raheem Sterling playing alongside captain Harry Kane up-front. And on the bench, England could go on the pace of Marcus Rashford or the fighting spirit of Jamie Vardy, if a change of tactics is needed. They used the formation to its best use early on as they dominated the match with chances coming in all over the pitch.
The first big chance they had was when Lingard struck the ball towards goal 3 minutes in, but it got saved by Tunisia's starting goalkeeper's foot. Then ten minutes into the match, England got the goal they deserved as Harry Kane scored off a corner after a brilliant save to keep John Stones' initial attempt out of the net. Things got better for England a couple of minutes later when Tunisia was forced to make a desperate substitute as their goalkeeper went off with an injury to his shoulder. England kept going with two more chances from Lingard and Henderson, but they just couldn't convert. Then Tunisia got a penalty off an elbow from Kyle Walker, Ferjani Sassi converted the kick with a little bit of help from Pickford's fingertips. England tried to get the lead back before halftime, but they couldn't reach another goal.
At halftime, it was the feeling of same old England as they weren't scoring on chances and were not showing their abilities and putting so-called lesser opponents away. Also, there was a debate on VAR. As England was not given a penalty on what looked like a clear penalty as Kane was brought down similar to a rugby tackle.
The second half was comfortable England as they had much of the possession but just couldn't get it near the box tough the commentators were saying it could be because of the heat and humidity. So Southgate decided to get more pace in the team by replacing Sterling with Marcus Rashford with 20 minutes to go in the match. It seemed to be what England needed to make the game easier to control for them, and they needed another goal, and they knew that Tunisia wouldn't be able to recover quickly. Southgate decided another pace player was required, so he took off Alli who looked like he had an injury and brought on Ruben Loftus-Cheek. Nothing was working, and it looked like it was going to be two points thrown away until stoppage time when England got another corner. Kane scored the winner from that and Tunisia didn't have the energy or believe in winning the game.
At the end of the game, it was a relief for England, and it was the first time they won their first game in the tournament since Germany 2006. Next up for England is Panama in Nizhny Novgorod on Sunday.
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