England 4 Croatia 2
What a way to open Group L. England didn’t start the greatest but were gifted an early penalty after Luka Modric unknowingly kicked Madueke in the box giving the referee an easy decision to point to the spot, Harry Kane and stepped up and actually missed the penalty but upon review Livakovic was off the line when he made the save so the penalty was retaken and Kane didn’t make the same mistake slotting home to give England the lead in the 12th minute. From there it looked like only a matter of time before England nabbed a second but it was actually Croatia who hit back in the 36th minute as Peter Sucic laid the ball off to Martin Baturina on the edge of the box who curled a beauty past Pickford to bring Croatia level, it didn’t take long however for England to go back in front as a signature Declan Rice corner found Harry Kane who headed the three lions back in front in the 42nd minute. Just when you though England where going to be leading at half-time Croatia struck back as Perisic was found in behind with the PSV winger heading it back to Petar Musa who volleyed Croatia level five minutes into added time, Tuchel must have given the England players a rocket at half-time because they came out flying and took the lead early as Anderson found Bellingham in behind who ran through and slid the ball past Livakovic to put England back in front in the 47th minute. How England didn’t score another in the next ten minutes I’ll never know but they did finish the game in the 85th minute as substitute Marcus Rashford cut in and fired a lovely shot past Livakovic to sow the points up for England, a great way to start the group for Tuchel’s men.
A statement of intent from England. We’ve been waiting a while for England to get their campaign under way and they didn’t disappoint tonight putting 4 past a very strong Croatian defence, I was critical of England in my preview but I think we saw a clear identity from Tuchel’s side tonight with two rapid wingers running in behind and Kane dropping deep looking to pick them out. I think this system gets the best out of Kane along with allowing England to transition quick when they win the ball back, it also vindicates why Tuchel didn’t pick the likes of Palmer or Foden as there’s no real room for them in this system. Another vindication for Tuchel was Jude Bellingham who was brilliant tonight after question marks over his starting position in the team scoring a great goal to go with an all round superb performance, the one negative you could point to is the defence which did look shaky all night and I wouldn’t be surprised if Guehi found his way into the starting 11 for the next game. I can’t see a partnership of Konsa and Stones winning England a World Cup, you never know though.
Not the start Croatia wanted to the World Cup. It was always going to be a tough opening game for Croatia and whilst I think they played relatively well in the first half the second half performance was a disaster and they were lucky in the end to only lose by two goals, the defence that looked so strong on paper was all over the place the whole game which is credit to England I suppose. The one bright spark was Martin Baturina who scored a brilliant goal and he did look like the one Croatian player that could hurt England in the attack, Luka Modric was taken off in the 58th minute and did look short of fitness in that midfield alongside Mario Pasalic. A loss isn’t the end of the world for Croatia in a group with Panama and Ghana so they’ll look to those two games as must-win to finish 2nd in the group where they should be.
Are we going to see a new England this tournament. Since the 2018 World Cup under Gareth Southgate we’ve seen England be quite risk-averse when it comes to major tournaments relying on their defence and set-pieces to go far which did work up until they played one of the top nations in the knockouts, whilst that style worked to go deep in tournaments I think this new style under Tuchel suits this team far more and gives them a better chance to win a major tournament. With subs like Marcus Rashford, Morgan Rogers, Bukayo Saka etc you can replace quality players with players of the same ilk which only really France can relate to in this tournament in my opinion, I think that England can be very optimistic of going far in this World Cup under Thomas Tuchel and they’ve got just as good of chance as any of winning it.
That’s Matchday 1 of the World Cup over. With Colombia and Uzbekistan playing tonight along with Ghana vs Panama that brings the first Matchday of the World Cup to an end and in my opinion it has delivered more than what we could have hoped for, whether it’s a Messi hat-trick, Mbappe silencing the critics or Cape Verde holding Spain to a draw I think there was a little something for everyone in this first week of the World Cup. Lets hope we’re in for more of the same in the next week and beyond.