In front of around 60,000 fans in Seville last night at Real Betis’ Estadio Benito Villamarín ground, England took on Spain in what was an absolutely fantastic game. Going into the match the Spaniards had not lost at home in a competitive match for over 15 years and the way they started you could see why as England got away with Spain not taking their chances.
Spain started the match with the majority of the team that had beaten Wales 4-1 on Thursday, plus they had nine of their eleven who started and beat England at Wembley last month. As for Gareth Southgate’s side, well it was most of the first time from the World Cup with a few notable players included like Chilwell, Gomez, Winks and Barkley.
After the early missed chances, Pickford found Kane in the middle of the park with a wonderful pass. Kane turned and found Rashford out on the left wing, Rashford controlled the ball brilliantly with his left foot and hit a wonderful first-time ball into the path of Raheem Sterling. Sterling controlled brilliantly too and smashed it passed De Gea.
Moments later, Kane found Rashford once again with a brilliant inside early ball, Rashford’s first touch was spot on again with his left foot and this time he shot first time himself passed De Gea to give England a 2-0 goal.
Kane was at it again with yet another assist when he was found by another fantastic ball, this time from Ross Barkley. Kane’s first time pass found Sterling unmarked in the middle and he made it three. All this in a first-half when before kick-off England had not scored a competitive goal in Spain for over 30 years years.
Into the second-half and Spain started brightly again but to be fair both teams could have scored straight away, but more chances went astray. Spain finally did when score when Alcácer headed in from a corner on 58 minutes. The home side then put even more pressure on England but on the break England always looked a threat and although they did concede with the last touch of the game in the 97th minute when Ramos headed in.
Great performance with some fantastic football from England with the passing and finishing making us look like Spain of old. The no fear attitude and pressure to make Spain make mistake was key though and to be honest Spain looked like they didn’t know what was coming at them at times. Plenty to improve on defending wise for England as they did get away with it at times, but on reflection England definitely deserved the win. Well done.
