After an hour, Gareth Southgate seemed to have some sympathy with San Marino with the replacement of his captain Harry Kane – and also an understanding with former international Wayne Rooney, who had played his last international match for England under Southgate three years ago. For about 60 minutes, the national coach watched with delight as attacker Kane scored one goal after the other and still didn’t have enough. Shortly before half-time, Kane had four hits in a row (27./31./39./42.), Two of them from penalties. Through this, well: Quattrick, Kane has now become the first player to score 16 goals for his country in one year.
But above all – after his three-pack against Albania last Friday – with his international goals 45, 46, 47 and 48 in the all-time list of the best, he is up to five goals against the record shooter Rooney (53 goals). Third-placed Gary Lineker (48) has already caught up, which is the mass paper Sun animated to the headline “Harry Lineker”.
It is possible that Kane would have equalized the reference of his role model against San Marino if Southgate had not replaced him early. Without the substitution, Southgate later quipped, “Wayne Rooney’s family” would have called him up on the phone. Previously, Southgate had to put up with criticism from Kane for largely doing without his goalscorer in the first World Cup qualifiers against San Marino and Andorra. Southgate also admitted that the question was no longer “if”, but only “when” Kane would break his compatriot’s record.
15 wins, 52 goals, 14 games without conceding goals: There has never been a record like this
Kane’s early end of work read like an offer of peace to San Marino not to want to push the result any higher. The opposite happened: the substitution of the captain promoted the scoring against the 210th and bottom of the Fifa world rankings. The competition for a place in the English national team has now developed a momentum of its own that no longer even allows an unequal game to tumble against a pitiful opponent. Tyrone Mings (69th), Tammy Abraham (78th) and Bukayo Saka (79th) added three goals to a 10-0 (6-0) England highest away win in a competitive game.
The final success in qualification group I, the Three Lions secures a safe and unbeaten starting place at the World Cup in Qatar, the English Football Association has the most successful calendar year in its proud history, which goes back to 1863: 15 wins, 52 goals and 14 Clean sheets (Games without conceding a goal) have never existed. The success of the year also included making it into the European Championship final, even though the duel with Italy at Wembley at home was painfully lost.
But compared to the Italians, England took the momentum out of the tournament, the big mission remains: to become world champion again for the first time since 1966. And the young generation’s insistence on the established forces is unlikely to be as pronounced in any national team as in England. Since Southgate took office four years ago, 83 professionals have been on the pitch, including 50 debutants, including goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale, attacker Emile Smith Rowe (both Arsenal FC) and midfielder Conor Gallagher (Crystal Palace) for a few days. Southgate could easily form several national teams from the huge arsenal of players who would have mastered the World Cup qualification just as confidently. The reservoir is so deep that hardly anyone thinks of ex-Dortmund Jadon Sancho at the moment, who no longer even received an invitation.
The development of the English team is reminiscent of the DFB-Elf in the early days of Jogi Löw
Due to the talent pool and the experience gained in fourth place in the World Cup and second in the European Championship, England is one of the favorites for the one-year preparation for the world event in the Persian Gulf. The development is strongly reminiscent of the German national team in its early days under the former national coach Joachim Löw. While Löw had to prescribe a portion of pragmatism for his game idea based on possession of the ball for the 2014 World Cup, the defensively very solid Three Lions need a little more wit to survive against equally strong competitors. Because the truth of the successful season for England also includes that as a renowned opponent only Germany, which stumbled at the EM, was defeated.