England’s World Cup is off to a winning start after a scintillating second-half performance and that is all that really matters. Thomas Tuchel and his team are now in control of Group L and that could prove to be important in terms of their route through this tournament.
This was one of the most entertaining games of the World Cup so far but it took a huge improvement after the break for England to prevail. Here Daily Mail Sport examines the big talking points from a huge night in Texas.
Tuchel’s handling of Bellingham pays off
Thomas Tuchel’s treatment of Jude Bellingham has not been to everyone’s taste but he has brought him to the start line of this tournament in perfect shape and deserves huge credit for that.
Simply put, Tuchel has played his cards perfectly. Having left his best player out of a squad last October and having persistently drilled home the importance of behaviour and on-field positional discipline, the England manager was repaid here with one of the Real Madrid star’s best performances in an England shirt.
Here there was evidence that Bellingham has been listening. He played with focus and control but what we will all remember is his goal.
Jude Bellingham celebrates his wonderful goal against Croatia
Bellingham is simply a big moments player. He turns up when his team needs him. He did it in game one of the last Euros against Serbia and again with that scissor kick to save England against Slovakia.
Here, his confidence and determination enabled him to turn a half chance into a goal in the opening minute of the second half and it was everything and more that England needed after a worryingly disjointed first period.
Captain Harry Kane acknowledged his team-mate’s display when he said: ‘Great goal, great run, great finish. You can see the desire from Jude in training.’
There was an interesting development when Tuchel made a raft of changes with 20 minutes to go. Morgan Rogers came on in the 10 role and Bellingham dropped back to sit alongside Elliot Anderson. When he was substituted later, he left the field with grace. A perfect night.
No World Cup if England defend like this
England came through qualifying without conceding a goal but the flip side of that was always that the two times they played teams with a top 20 FIFA ranking – Senegal and Japan – they lost. Here England looked too vulnerable throughout and were cut open in ways that should worry Tuchel as he looks to plot a way through this tournament.
Croatia – ranked 11 in the world – had two chances in the opening five minutes and that set the tone in terms of how uncomfortable England looked when they didn’t have the ball.
The decision to play John Stones instead of Marc Guehi was a bold one by Tuchel but didn’t really come off. Stones was playing on the left side of the pairing whereas at Manchester City he usually operates on the right. For the first Croatia goal he was left on the seat of his pants by Petar Sucic and that was reminiscent of what Ollie Watkins did to him on the last day of the season for Aston Villa at the Etihad.
Meanwhile, it’s pertinent to ask whether Stones and Ezri Konsa were offered enough protection from Declan Rice and Anderson. Despite England’s improvement as the game wore on, there are some questions for Tuchel to answer before England’s second game against Ghana.
John Stones fights for the ball against Croatia but he looked uncomfortable on the left side of the centre-half pairing
Power of the set-pieces
Tuchel has been saying for more than 12 months how important set-pieces would be at this tournament and here his team produced a beautiful training ground routine to hand Kane the chance to score his second goal.
With Stones and Nico O’Reilly getting rid of two Croatian defenders with blocks, Kane was able to run freely into the vacated space and power his header down into the corner. On the England bench Tuchel’s assistant Anthony Barry celebrated like a coach who had just seen a well thought-out plan come together.
We have reported before that the Premier League team most admired by Tuchel are Arsenal and that was a set-piece goal that Mikel Arteta and his players would have been proud of.
What England need a little bit more of in their next two group games is a persistent threat from open play. Here England only found that in the second half. Further down the road, 45-minute performances will not be enough.
Harry Kane heads home England’s second goal after a well-worked set-piece
Honesty sometimes pays
Tuchel is an England manager who says it as he sees it and he doesn’t always get the balance right. Ask players like Trent Alexander-Arnold, Harry Maguire and even Bellingham about that and they will tell their stories of Tuchel’s frankness.
At half-time here, though, it was clear that Tuchel delivered the kind of team talk that England needed. Half-time touchline interviews don’t normally yield anything but here Tuchel’s assistant Barry was as unstinting as the German had clearly been in the dressing room. He accused England of being fearful and confused in the first half and the players had clearly been listening.
For the first 15 minutes of the second half England were fantastic and could have scored three or four more goals. That could prove one of the biggest and most effective team talks of Tuchel’s life.
Afterwards Kane said: ‘Credit to the manager. He gave us a speech at half-time and said if we lose, we lose in our way and I think we saw that in the way we came out in the second half. We went full gas and they couldn’t live with it.’
England’s squad could be their biggest weapon
Writing for Daily Mail Sport this week, former England striker Michael Owen said the national team should change their front three at half-time. It was a left-field idea but it has its roots in one unshakeable fact and that is that Tuchel has at his disposal a terrifically deep squad.
Even with players like Phil Foden and Cole Palmer left at home, Tuchel was able to introduce players at the right times here to galvanise and bring momentum to this display.
Marcus Rashford came off the bench to add England’s fourth goal and to underline the squad’s strength in depth
This was a super game and England deserved to win it. But there were times when it was in the balance. For example, with five minutes of regular time left England were beginning to look vulnerable to Croatia’s attacks. It was then that four substitutes – Djed Spence, Rogers, Bukayo Saka and finally Marcus Rashford – combined to create and score the killer fourth goal.
Every coach in this tournament would want options like that and it’s up to Tuchel to use them as perfectly as he did here. Former England forward Wayne Rooney was effusive about what he saw, saying: ‘That was as exciting a first game of a tournament by England as I’ve seen for a long time.’
