4-goal Harry Kane stars again as free-scoring England blitz San Marino to qualify for World Cup
Not many national teams across the world are currently in a better form than England. The Three Lions are currently on a roll and blowing away every opponent before them.
Gareth Southgate’s side went into their last group game in the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers with Poland breathing down their necks. However, England showed up in a beast mode and, aided by a very hopeless and hapless San Marino team, they ran riots.
Harry Kane scored four goals. Harry Maguire, Emile Smith Rowe and Bukayo Saka also scored to wrap up an impressive night for Southgate’s side, who booked their place at the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Qualification: secured ✅
The #ThreeLions are heading to next year's @FIFAWorldCup! https://t.co/x6cgOojZph
Free-scoring England hit double figures
San Marino are one of the weakest teams in the world. In fact, they are the lowest-ranked team by FIFA. However, that doesn’t take anything away from England’s performance.
The Three Lions were simply sublime and clinical. There were also several brilliant individual performances on the night. Smith Rowe, Jude Bellingham, Kalvin Phillips and Trent Alexander-Arnold were on top of their game, and were simply too much for the San Marino defence to handle.
England have won many matches by big scorelines. But their 10-0 win over San Marino remains their biggest in a competitive game, and it was completely deserved.
Two hat-tricks.
Two @bt_uk Player of the Match awards.
Congratulations, @HKane! 👏 https://t.co/xPzYg1gJji
Harry Kane stars again for Three Lions
Harry Kane’s scoring record for England has been outstanding. The Tottenham Hotspur striker scored a hat-trick against Albania last week, and added four more against San Marino.
The 28-year-old has now moved level with Gary Lineker after taking his goal tally for England to 48. He is now five away from Wayne Rooney, who is the Three Lions’ all-time top scorer.
“If we left him (Kane) on another half an hour, we would have had Wayne Rooney's family on the phone,” Southgate joked after the game, as quoted by Eurosport.
“He is a phenomenal goalscorer; he hasn’t had the opportunity in the games where there have been a lot of goals available, and we wanted to give him the chance tonigh,t and he took it really well."
Kane is already England’s highest scorer in competitive games, And at this rate, he could retire as the country’s best-ever forward.