England captain Harry Kane didn’t get a goal on Saturday in the quarter-finals against Sweden but he is happy and absolutely ‘buzzing’ after England reached the semi-finals of the World Cup after 28 years.
Headers from Harry Maguire and Dele Alli helped England beat Sweden 2-0 in Samara and become the third team to reach this year’s semis in Russia, where they will face either of Russia or Croatia.
But, for Kane, the feeling of reaching the semis hasn’t sunk in yet.
“Probably not,” says England’s skipper upon being asked if this win has sunk in yet.
The Tottenham striker lauded his team for defending well against a tall and strong Swedish team.
“There was so much preparation for this game. I thought we were fantastic. Sweden made it tough…long balls from the back…lots of crosses…we’re buzzing! We’re buzzing,” said an ecstatic Kane.
However, he is aware of the challenges ahead and remains confident of a good show in the next round as well.
“We know there’s still a big game ahead: the semi-final. But we’re feeling good, we’re feeling confident. We just have to go again. I know the fans here, and the fans back home — we’ll see some videos later — are enjoying it. We just want to make the country proud,” said the 24-year-old.
His English namesake Harry Maguire was very happy with Three Lions’ performance on Saturday and credited his teammates for executing the plans perfectly.
“We felt like we dominated the ball today, controlled the play. We were a bit too sloppy towards the end of the second half though,” said Maguire.
“We knew what we’d worked on. Set plays were a big thing. The cross from Jesse (Lingard) into Dele (for the second goal), we’d worked on in training, so credit to the staff and players for executing it,” added the Leicester City defender.
Jordan Pickford, who made two decisive saves during the course of the game was also pleased with the team’s efforts.
“It’s a great result. We knew it was going to be difficult against Sweden. We know what they were going to bring to the part and we knew what he had to bring our A-game,” said England’s goalkeeper to the Beeb
The Everton goalkeeper also said that the England supporters have been brilliant and the team wants to create their own history in Russia.
“It was quality,” he says. “England fans are different class. We really enjoy playing and when the fans are like that it makes us very relaxed. I think the last time England were in a semi-final was 1990 and I wasn’t born then. We can go and create our own history, but now it’s all about rest and recovery.”
Alli, who scored England’s second goal also lauded the fans home.
“It’s a great achievement for the team. We owed it to the fans back home because we’ve seen how they’re supporting us,” said Alli to BBC.
Coach Gareth Southage also lauded the boys for their effort and executing the training ground regime perfectly.
“We knew we would have the majority of the ball, the question was whether we could break them down. We’d identified a few areas where we might do that and we got the goals from both of them,” Southgae told BBC.
“We scored from set plays because we got into good areas on the pitch. Sweden are well-organised, they make things tough and over the years we’ve underestimated them. Today, our spirit was as good as theirs but our quality was a little bit better,” Southgate added.