GROUP D
England 2-0 Croatia
Maguire 2'
Rashford 51'
Eamonn Foster
Wembley Stadium, London, England
Sunday 14th June
A clash of titans. FIFA-ranked fourth against FIFA-ranked sixth. Just two years earlier this was a World Cup semi-final. At England’s beloved Wembley stadium, the home of football! In the country where football was invented, after all! Does it get much bigger than this?
The match kicked off in the bright afternoon sunshine with a certain excitement in the stands yet, with it being at Wembley, the feeling that this was also just another routine England home game- albeit one dressed up in fancier colours. There was no need for England to be fazed. Everything is familiar here at Wembley. Gareth Southgate had said the very same thing in the pre-match press conference. Why fear? This is England’s home.
And the intensity of England’s start gave full license to the nation’s dreamers to dream that this year could be England’s year. Croatia had touched the ball only via a deflection off Dejan Lovren’s backside when a swooping Trent Alexander-Arnold corner barely 90 seconds after kick-off was emphatically headed home by the forehead of Manchester United captain Harry Maguire. 1-0 England. Maguire’s presence on corners, such an important tool for England at the 2018 World Cup, got them up and running at Euro 2020, too. As Maguire and his teammates celebrated, England suddenly felt even more at home and Croatia, exasperated, even further from home.
England are very good at qualifiers at Wembley. Really, very good. It’s been thirteen years since England last lost a qualifier here, either for the Euros or the World Cup- and that defeat coincidentally came against Croatia when a late Mladen Petrić goal gave today’s visitors a 3-2 victory. Before that, it was the 1-0 defeat to Germany in 2000 following which Kevin Keegan walked away from the England job. So, a very long time. But whisper it, England, this is not a qualifier; this is the tournament! A European summer tournament with silverware at stake!
Because football in the summer heat does something to England. It creates huge anticipation but does not usually take long in making the boys in the white shirts feel somewhat out of place, stoically sweating away and heaving and at times even bleeding for the nation until ultimately they come unstuck, with the sense that they have been invading everybody else’s party and that eventually the decent thing is withdraw themselves to allow the party to go on. Perhaps it is from being an island when so often tournaments are won by nations in mainland Europe, where the winners seem to be. Perhaps it is because the Premier League is so often held up as the league, that when the tournaments come around it is a burden too much to also have the team, too.
Perhaps the feeling of outsiders will also be exacerbated this time around now that the UK has completed its departure from the European Union. Prime minister Boris Johnson, watching on from Wembley’s extended prawn sandwich brigade, recently hailed leading the UK out of the European Union as ‘the most significant, most splendid event in British history since the culmination of the Second World War’. The names of Hurst and Charlton and Moore, we can assume, did not enter his head at any point.
But now to give the England team credit. As Boris clapped and grinned and the grating ‘England Band’ banged its drum, or droned ‘Rule Britannia’, or whatever it is that they do when they provide their backdrop to England matches, the England team played rather well. The opening half saw Raheem Sterling and Marcus Rashford regularly stretch Croatia’s backline as Jordan Henderson and Mason Mount spread the play with purpose and panache. On the left flank, Ben Chilwell charged up and down relentlessly to ensure Raheem Sterling was not Croatia’s only concern there. And with England’s right flank boasting interplay between Rashford, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Trent Alexander-Arnold, it was to be one of the biggest tests of the career of Rangers left-back Borna Barišić. Meanwhile at the heart of Croatia’s defence, Liverpool’s Dejan Lovren will have tried to suppress any memories of the half-hour runaround given to him on this very pitch back in 2017 by today’s opponent Harry Kane.
As it turned out, England did not need to be at their best to beat this Croatia outfit. More had been expected from the team in the chequered shirts. They may now be without their devilish fox-in-the-box Mario Mandžukić, who retired after 2018’s World Cup final, having put England to the sword in the semi-final, but the team still contains fine talent, most obviously in Luka Modrić, so often held aloft as one of the game’s modern greats, and Bayern Munich’s Ivan Perišić. Chelsea’s Mateo Kovačić sat behind them in the anchor role. In the absence of Mandžukić it has been left to the burly Bruno Petković to occupy the forward role, but without being particularly mobile or experienced he still lacks the required craftiness to really strike fire into opposition defences.
England were on top for the entirety of the first half without giving Croatian goalkeeper too much to deal with and half-time saw Mount withdrawn for England, with Southgate claiming afterwards that he had ‘felt a tweak in his hamstring’. In his place came Leicester City’s James Maddison, who many had felt was deserving of a start given his wonderful form towards the end of the season. Maddison will have enjoyed the chance to come up against Luka Modrić, who saw much of the ball but failed to find real opportunities to open England’s defence. Given Henderson was the most defensive of England’s three midfielders, perhaps Croatia would have benefitted from moving Modrić further forward in an attempt to try to allow him to outthink the Liverpool captain’s all-action style in the more advanced areas, but this did not happen. Modrić rarely entered England’s third and England were all the better for it.
Once Liverpool were crowned champions back at the end of March Jurgen Klopp joked that he had thought about running his first eleven down to the ground to avoid ‘doing the English a massive favour’. As it was, however, by treating Liverpool’s remaining 8 games as a kind of exhibition tour of England, those players who had featured heavily were largely rested whilst plenty of opportunity was given to fringe players and the club’s many deserving young prospects. Gareth Southgate will have cherished this more than anyone. So often has post-season burnout been offered as an explanation for England falling short in tournament football. This, though, will not be the case for Henderson, Gomez or Alexander-Arnold, who featured in fewer than six matches between them in Liverpool’s final eight matches. In contrast, the run also allowed Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to have a much-needed sustained run in the starting eleven, during which he hit fine form and proved himself to be a real leader as well as chipping in with four eye-catching goals in the final five matches.
Six minutes after the half-time break, however, it was not a Liverpool player but rather another Manchester United player who got on the scoresheet for England. Rashford, played in by yet another incisive Alexander Arnold pass, used his first touch to advance into the penalty area, his muscular frame to barge Croatian centre-half Tin Jedvaj out of the picture and finally his right foot to drive the ball low and very hard past goalkeeper Livaković to put England two goals to the good.
The majority of the second half passed by strangely serenely for England, although Kane, still not fully fit, really struggled to find his finishing touch and squandered a few wonderful opportunities to give England a completely calm conclusion to the game. Frustrations in the England camp were only added to when Rashford landed awkwardly ten minutes from time after contesting a header with Lovren and had to be withdrawn. Jordan Sancho came on in his place and though his pace helped get fans off their seats and peg Croatia back a few times, a couple of wayward backward passes in the final stages made one wonder if a more cautious substitute would have been welcome to steady English stress levels.
Nonetheless, England held out and sit top of Group D. Now to see the extent of the injuries to Rashford and Mount. There will also be calls from some quarters for Southgate to drop his misfiring captain Harry Kane, which appears unlikely for now at least, whilst some continue to lament Southgate’s decision to overlook the opportunity to bring the Premier League’s Golden Boot winner Jamie Vardy back from international retirement. Anyway, England must look onwards. One thing is for certain: Friday’s much-anticipated clash with Scotland will inevitably be a more intense affair and England may well need to be much more clinical in front of goal if they are to avoid a historic upset from their fired-up old enemy.
Man of the Match: Trent Alexander-Arnold
Attendance: 87,467
England:
Pickford; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Maguire, Chilwell; Oxlade-Chamberlain, Henderson, Mount (Maddison 45’); Rashford (Sancho 81’), Kane, Sterling.
Croatia:
Livaković; Vida, Lovren, Jedvaj, Barišić; Kovačić, Modrić, Vlašić; Perišić, Rebić (Brozović 68’); Petković (Oršić 83’).