Raheem Sterling seals England win over Croatia

Raheem Sterling scored the only goal of the game to give England their first ever win in an opening match at the European Championship.

The winger was preferred to Jack Grealish in the starting lineup despite a poor run of form at club level which saw him left out of the Manchester City team during the Premier League run-in.

Sterling repaid the faith shown in him by Gareth Southgate by popping up on the hour mark to finish from eight yards.

England piled on the pressure early on and Phil Foden came within inches of breaking the deadlock when his curling shot hit the post.

Embed from Getty Images

Croatia were not ever at their best and looked like a shadow of the team that defeated England in the 2018 World Cup semi-final.

England finally got their breakthrough after the break. A man of the match performance from Kalvin Phillips was topped off when he played Sterling in to power past Dominik Livakovic.

Harry Kane had a quiet game in the opening hour but nearly added a second just moments later but could only turn Mason Mount’s cross wide.

Group D rivals Scotland and Czech Republic meet in Glasgow tomorrow, before Scotland travel to Wembley on Friday.

Cover Photo: Wembley by Georges-adrien Carcanis under license from CC BY NC-ND 2.0.

You may also like...

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.