The Second String’s Second Half

England qualified for the last 16 of the World Cup, by beating Wales comprehensively tonight despite putting out a distinctly second-string team.

Southgate decided to wring the changes for this final group game with Trippier, Mount, Sterling and Saka all given a rest. Kyle Walker and Jordan Henderson were the replacements behind the front line and replacing the two S’s up front were Phil Foden and Marcus Rashford.

These changes didn’t seem to give the Welsh any belief in their ability to win this one though as they simply shut up shop throughout the entire first 45. You’ve heard of parking the bus; well, this was parking the whole fleet of busses and in fairness to them it worked.

The English back-up brigade huffed and puffed but failed to come close to threatening to blow down the red wall that faced them. At times the Welsh had 9 players inside their own box as their backs to the wall defending sucked the life out of the match till the ref put us out of our misery by blowing for half-time.

Going into the break it looked like we were in for another USA performance. So whatever Southgate said to his back-up boys at half-time clearly worked though as within 6 minutes of the restart they had rediscovered their Iran form and scored a quick-fire double to put the game beyond Wales.

The first of this double came from the right boot of Marcus Rashford. His free kick from 25 yards out flew like it was shot out of a cannon, past the despairing dive of Danny Ward, on its way to sending a tidal wave through the net. It was a thing of beauty that sparked scenes of pure insanity at the fan park in Manchester that I was watching the match from.

The atmosphere had barely levelled out by the time England doubled their lead less than 120 seconds later. This goal was more of a team effort instigated by Rashford’s excellent closing work to get the ball back high up the pitch. It was finished by the other front-line replacement and fellow local lad, Phil Foden.

From Rashford’s efforts the ball bounced through to Harry Kane driving down the right channel, he bought it under control expertly before hitting a tempting ball across the 6-yard line. Steaming in from 30 yards away was Phil Foden, who inexplicably timed his run gorgeously to meet the ball and stroke it home to set the fan park wild again.

That double strike crushed the hopes out of the Welsh, whose tepid play to this point became even more disjointed and more defensive in temperament. As such it took 17 minutes and the return to action of one Kalvin Phillips from injury for England to get their third and final goal.

Phillips pinged the ball from the defence right up the other end of the pitch for Rashford to latch onto down the right wing. Having controlled the ball, he twisted and turned his way past the defender marking him before slotting the ball through the legs of both the defender blocking his path to goal and the keeper to complete his brace.

A double nutmeg to double his tally for the match, not bad for a player I would have left out of the squad if I were in Southgate’s position.

With Rashford’s double and Foden’s finish England were propelled to the top of the group and now have a showdown against the Lions of Teranga, Champions of Africa, to look forward too at 19:00 on Sunday.

Wales for their part exit their first World Cup since 1958 after finishing bottom of the group with just a single point (and a single goal) to their name.

Sunday 4th December 2022 is the date set for the battle of the Lions, will it be The Three Lions or the Lions of Teranga that emerge victorious? On Sunday evening we will have our answer.

My pride says it will be the Three Lions that come out on top, but Senegal are no fools and they didn’t conquer an entire continent of football teams by being easy opponents.