sport news World Cup: Harry Kane, scoreless in Doha, insists he'll come good in the ... trends now
It starts here. That’s what England captain Harry Kane said as the call to prayer drifted over the team’s training base at Al Wakrah early on Friday evening. The preliminaries of the group stage are over and England, unlike Germany and Belgium, survived them unscathed. That was the minimum requirement and now the serious business begins. It starts here. It starts with Senegal, Africa’s champions, at Al Bayt Stadium on Sunday.
Kane exuded positivity and intent as he spoke. He had volunteered to come and talk to the media. He wanted to lead from the front off the pitch as well as on it and to sit side by side with manager Gareth Southgate at the official FIFA media conference on Saturday evening, too. These are the knockout stages. One bad performance and England go home. It is time for their big players to stand up and take responsibility.
Kane, the Golden Boot winner at Russia 2018, has not scored in this World Cup but he has still been one of England’s best players. His class has shone through in the assists he made against Iran and Wales and the way he has linked play. As the debate rages about who should be selected in the forward line alongside him against Senegal, he remains the constant. Marcus Rashford has scored three goals but Kane is still our biggest threat.
Harry Kane has insisted the World Cup is just getting started as England prepare for their last 16 tie with Senegal
Kane wanted to lead from the front and volunteered to speak to the media alongside Gareth Southgate on Saturday night
Kane is yet to score at the World Cup but said he is saving his goals for the knock-out stage
The skipper knows that his team may need him to break his duck against Aliou Cisse’s side, in a stadium that has been constructed in the middle of the desert north of Doha, if they are to progress to the quarter-finals, where a showdown with the world champions, France, would probably await them.
But Senegal are not a team to be patronised. Even without their injured talisman, Sadio Mane, they are a better side than any England have faced here so far.
The bar is set higher for this England team now than it used to be and qualifying from the group phase as joint top scorers of all the original 32 teams has been met with a shrug. England made the semi-finals four years ago and an arrogant revisionism has been allowed to take hold that that somehow represented an under-achievement and, indeed, a missed opportunity.
Senegal will provide a tougher test than any side England have faced so far out in Qatar
England fans have forgotten what it was like to be whipping boys. A new narrative asserts that this is the most talented group of players England have had at their disposal since 1970, and that Senegal, a team who won the Africa Cup of Nations last year, a team who know how to win under pressure and now stand in England’s way in the second round of this World Cup, signify only a minor inconvenience.
Kane — who needs three more goals to beat Wayne Rooney’s record of 53 strikes for his country — is confident that both he and England will start to lengthen their stride now that the stakes are higher. Kane did not score in the group stage of last year’s European Championship, either. Then he scored once against Germany in the second round, twice against Ukraine in the quarter-finals and the winner against Denmark in the last four.
