Harry Kane warned England players about the “curse of the second game” against Kansas City ahead of the draw with Ghana in Boston and revealed he does not blame himself for missing a golden opportunity in Tuesday night’s World Cup clash.
Harry Kane and England fire blanks against Ghana
Harry Kane refuses to blame himself for his late mistake against Ghana. Instead of crying over spilled milk, England’s indispensable captain will back himself up for the next goal.
The 32-year-old said after taking a shot from seven yards in Boston. “That’s part of a striker’s life. This year we’ve had a lot of chances to go our way, but we’ve also had chances that we probably shouldn’t have gone in. Nine times out of 10 we’ve scored, but there’s a feeling in football that things don’t go your way.”
“Nico (O’Reilly) hit the underside of the bar before that. We had a few half-sniffs. They were well organized and made it difficult for us.”
“We had some good moments and we controlled their counterattacks well. It was the complete opposite of the first match against Croatia.”
Thomas Tuchel admitted in his post-match press conference that he had a hard time grasping the concept of replacing Kane with Ollie Watkins or Ivan Toney, despite his back-to-back wins in Croatia and 61 goals for Bayern Munich this season.
He also refuted suggestions that England are overly reliant on their captain. The captain took just 19 touches against the Black Stars, the lowest ever for the Three Lions to play over 90 minutes in a major tournament match.
Kane also believes otherwise, insisting that the burden of carrying the country on his shoulders is not heavy, adding: “I don’t think so. After a 0-0 draw, it might be easy to say that right after the game.”
“But there will be some close games like that in the tournament.
“We had enough chances to score at the end and backed ourselves up to score more often. Then we would have won 1-0 and everyone would have been happy. But it wasn’t supposed to happen.
Harry Kane misses England’s biggest chance to win against Ghana (Image: Getty Images)
“I don’t think there’s overconfidence. Any number nine in a big team, people expect them to score goals and that’s no different for me. When they don’t, there are some questions. It is what it is.”
“There were some good parts and some parts that could be improved. I’m not worried and I hope we can improve on Saturday.”
The stalemate with Ghana means England have drawn their second group stage game in the last four major competitions.
The experienced Cain knew this was coming, but now he’s focused on restoring calm to Kansas City in order to mount a convincing response against Panama.
He concluded: “Actually, we talked yesterday (Monday) before training and I just said, ‘Look, in the last three tournaments, we won the first tournament and drew the second tournament. Obviously, we have to focus on the games ahead.’
Manager Harry Kane urged England to regain focus and get back on track against Ghana
“It’s not easy to get carried away, I know we want to sometimes, but after the performance it’s natural because it was a great performance.
“However, this is the fourth tournament in a row where the second game didn’t go as well as expected, but in the end it’s the fourth tournament in a row where we almost qualified after two games, so there’s no shame in that.
There, me and the experienced players who have been through it will be a calming influence on the other players, and the good thing is that now we can play right away.
“I think there was a lot of waiting time between games, so it would be nice to just go back to Kansas every once in a while, and before you know it, you’re flying to New York.”
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