England continued their dominance over African teams with a commanding 3-0 win against Senegal in Sunday’s round of 16 clash in Qatar.
Goals from Harry Kane, Bukayo Saka and Jordan Henderson, denied Senegal the chance of a second quarter-final appearance at the World Cup.
Henderson’s goal against Senegal means he is England’s second-oldest ever World Cup scorer, after Tom Finney against USSR in 1958 (36 years and 64 days).
For Kane, he has now scored 11 goals at major tournaments for England (7 World Cup, 4 Euros), overtaking @GaryLineker (10) as the Three Lions’ all-time top scorer in such competitions.
After a difficult start to the game, England broke the deadlock in the 38th minute as Henderson swept home a low cross from Jude Bellingham.
Also Read: South Korea Can Beat Brazil; Nobody Knows World Of Football Now –Heung-Min
In the third minute of added time in the first half, Kane made it 2-0 after receiving a pass from Phil Foden before firing past Edourd Mendy.
In the 57th minute Saka added the third goal following a delightful cross from Foden which he slotted past Mendy.
The Three Lions will now face reigning champions France in the quarter-finals billed for Saturday, 10 December.
7 Comments
African football still has a really long way to go before competing reasonably with the rest of the world. Well, Senegal has 5bn to improve theirs as well as the other African participants here. Where is Nigeria headed? Any vision or is it to assemble names ahead of matches? No champion in the team at their club sides and we want to reckon with who?
Is not about any vision or anything like that
We lacked CREATIVE players in our midfield which is the engine of football and until we produce midfielders who are PLAYERMAKERS and creative to carved open a tight defensive setup, we aren’t going anyway
European clubs has destroyed our football by turning creative African player makers into defensive midfielders aka DJANGOS and NEGRO in the plantation
England had men behind the ball playing HIGH UP and any player maker could have split their defensive line open with ONE DEFENSIVE SPLITTING pass but did u see Senegal players able to do that? Nope! Not once
We need CREATIVE PLAY MAKERS the likes of mikel obi before he was turned into defensive midfielder in our African setup
Ghana had one in this wc, kudus Mohammed but football politics and selection destroyed our team!
African team are all BRAWL OVER BRAINS …
What made Senegal vulnerable was the absence of Gana in the middle of the pack to cut off counter attacks. If He was there i m very sure the result will have been positive. With Gana in the middle Senegal are always compact and very difficult to break down..Another weak link in the Senegalese team is The goal keeper. Mendy is a minus. Pls Senegal should look for another keeper gomg forward
What brand of soccer was Senegal playing? I had so much hope on them! They would have slotted in 2 goals before the English men started firing in goals. I’m so disappointed by this shabby performance.
1. When okocha said afrivan teams are not ready, they called him names. Now we can see.
2. People forgot that the Senegalese team should have been eliminated innthe group stages at afcon. They were abke to escape but oicked up later. They also struggle to beat Egypt to qualify. Not taking anything awsy from them. The team has good players but not really exceptional as a team.
3. Africa presently deos not have teams that are so exceptional at thr moment.
4. And we make so much noise before matches. Europeans southa Americans don’t make such noise. Ghana only beat Korea and they began to boast…they said they will win the world cup. Ghana of Africa and all those nonsense.
5. Senegal should get a better coach.
6. Well we hooe Morocco will beat Spain.
7. Rhe question us why are these players playing great as individuals in Europe and they are not doing same in world cups as teams? Oshimen, ademola, mane, onuachu, Sala abumeyang etc.
Well we hopr we find the answers.
European football has been ahead of African football for a long time. Some African teams tried to bridge the gap when their players started playing in European leagues from the late eighties onwards, gaining better tactical awareness and improving their techniques.
However, UEFA recently played a master stroke by introducing the UEFA nations league. With this competition, National teams of European nations play so many games, giving opportunities for the teams to blend, test new formations/tactics, introduce/test new players and eliminate ineffective players until they get their optimal team selection, formation and tactics. Add this to their entrenched tactical awareness, discipline and advanced techniques oiled by years of professionalism from well managed academies through club-sides at different levels, then you simply have other nations playing catch-up even with more naturally gifted players.
Furthermore, with their good reward system and professional management of players from the beginning of their careers through retirement has helped them to attract top talents of dual nationality (including those that were not originally from Europe) into their teams, hence bridging the talent gap that Europe may have had previously.
Now how can African teams fight back?
It’s almost a hopeless situation. It goes beyond assembling the most talented players from European top leagues under average or even exceptionally good managers.
First of all we need to get African National teams as equally busy as their European counterparts. But, how possible is this if the players are not based in Africa where they can easily be called up to report to training camps for friendly games or just to train, blend and gain more understanding of team tactics. That takes us back to the time beaten suggestion to improve the standards of the local leagues including reasonable welfare and professionalism that will encourage good players to stay in the local leagues.
Assuming we even get that part right someday, can CAF play its part to give us something like the UEFA Nations league? Even if CAF miraculously starts thinking that way, how will such league function well with the poor quality facilities that we have across the continent, such that some countries cannot host FIFA or CAF organized games due to things as simple as having a good pitch. Sometimes friendly games with rated football nations have to be taken to European countries due to poor facilities in the African countries involved.
Furthermore transport infrastructure in majority of African countries frustrates movements from one location to another in a short period of time. Add this to the boundary restrictions (visa policies) between African countries then, you realize how challenging it will be to replicate anything close to UEFA nations league in Africa. When you compare our situation with the advanced sports facilities, transport infrastructure and policy of free movement between European countries, then it becomes apparent that we have a much farther way to go than we currently admit.
Bottom line is that, only good governance through sustained incorruptible and visionary leadership can help African countries in any sphere of human endeavor including sports. The current widespread corruption across governments and private sectors in Africa will continue to widen the development gap between Africa and other continents in all spheres of human endeavors. We had already seen the impacts in other sectors including heath, education and security. Now the impact on sports including our beloved football has become more apparent.
But as humans, we cannot cease hoping for a positive turnaround.
Aleks, bless you. Brilliant. This is what we want to be reading and not vain diatribe being thrown here and there.