Harry Kane scores in impressive win for England at FIFA World Cup

AL KHOR, Qatar — Harry Kane scored a goal and helped set up another for England in a 3-0 win against Senegal at the Al Bayt Stadium on Sunday.

Kane’s goal was the first of the 2022 FIFA World Cup as England advance to the quarterfinals, where they will face defending champions France at the same stadium on Saturday.

It was the biggest margin of victory in the knockout stages of any World Cup for England.

“As a striker, scoring goals is what you do, and it’s one of the best feelings you can have in football,” Kane said. “Of course, I was waiting patiently to try and score, and thankfully, that was today. I feel good, and hopefully, this can start a good run for me personally, because I think that will help the team. But as you saw today, we have people scoring from all different positions, which is really important when you go into the late stages of the tournament.”

Senegal, the African champions, started well and had it not been for a fantastic save from England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford on Boulaye Dia, a half hour into the game, would have fallen behind. Dia hammered a left-footed shot from the left of the six-yard box, but Pickford was able to get his left arm out and make the save.

Less than 10 minutes later, Kane slipped a ball through to Jude Bellingham, who slid it across the penalty area for Jordan Henderson to slot into the net. Kane then scored three minutes into first-half extra time when Phil Foden slid a pass over to him on a counter attack and he hammered a shot past Senegal goalkeeper Edouard Mendy.

Bukayo Saka added a third less than 15 minutes into the second half, turning in a centring pass from Foden.

“I don’t think it was an easy win, I think, especially the first half an hour of the game, it was difficult; I think we had good possession of the ball, but we couldn’t do quite too much with it,” Kane said. “They were really compact and organized (defensively) and it made it really tough for us. The breakthrough (first goal) always helps, it was a great team goal and from there, I felt like we really pushed on and were ruthless with our pressing and our attacks. And whenever you score just before half time, it really takes the wind out of their sails.

“It was just a really solid performance from us and we took our chances when they came.”

England had never before won a knockout stage game at the World Cup by a three-goal margin. It reached the semifinals of the 2018 tournament before losing to Croatia and made it the final of the Euro 2020 tournament played in the summer of 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, losing to Italy.

England and France have not played at a World Cup since meeting in the group stage at the 1982 tournament in Spain. England won the game 3-1, but France still managed to get to the semifinals, where they lost to West Germany.

“That’s the biggest test we can face — they’re world champions — incredible depth of talent, outstanding individual players and very difficult to play against and to score goals against,” said England head coach Gareth Southgate. “So, it’s a fantastic challenge, brilliant game for us to prepare for. The two quarterfinals that are already in place (Argentina against Netherlands) are fantastic, historic football rivalries with great games from the past. It’s a brilliant game for us to be involved in and test ourselves against the very best.”

England forward Raheem Sterling was not available for the game as he left the team to deal with a family situation.

“He’s going back to England,” Southgate said. “We have to give him time to resolve that and be there for his family, that’s the most important thing at this time. We’re going to give him that space.”

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