Video: England fans go wild after Harry Kane’s late winning goal against Tunisia

Tunisia 1 England 2

It wasn’t pretty in the end but England got their World Cup group G campaign under way with a late win in Volgograd.

The 2-1 victory over Tunisia at a fly-infested Volgograd Arena is the first time the Three Lions have won their first game of a World Cup since 2006, and it provides them with important momentum ahead of Sunday’s game against Panama, who were beaten 3-0 by Belgium.

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England’s hero was Harry Kane, whose two goals took his international tally to 15 in 25 games. The villain of the piece was Kyle Walker, who conceded a controversial penalty after clumsily catching Fakhreddine Ben Youssef with his arm.

Ferjani Sassi coolly squeezed the spot kick past the flailing fingers of Jordan Pickford, just about the only time in the game that the England goalkeeper was called into action. For most of the match Pickford was a lonely spectator, looking on as his teammates dominated their hosts.

A cricket score had looked on the cards early on as England ran the North Africans ragged. Kane scored the first on 11 minutes, lashing the ball into the net after John Stones’ header had been well blocked by Tunisia keeper Mouez Hassen.

England should have had three or four more in the opening half-hour as they laid siege to the Tunisian goal but chances were spurned either through lucky saves or poor finishing, notably by Jesse Lingard, who got his legs in a tangle with the goal at his mercy.

Luckily for England Kane came to the rescue in the first minute of stoppage time, heading home Harry Maguire’s flick having earlier been rugby tackled to the ground on two occasions by the Tunisian defence at set-pieces, offences that went unpunished by the Colombian referee Wilmar Roldan.

“I’m absolutely buzzing!” exclaimed Kane. “It’s what dreams are made of. I’m so proud of the lads. We played so well, especially in the first half. We could have scored more. We kept going. It’s a World Cup, you go to the last second. It showed good character.”

What they said about...

The performance

Henry Winter, The Times: “Here was the adversity that Southgate had talked to his players about, and the need to stay calm, to concentrate and respond. They did, although it took a long time for the breakthrough, such was the stubbornness of Tunisian defending.”

Alan Shearer, BBC Sport: “The only disappointing thing was that we created so many chances [in the first half] but only took one of them. These are not half chances, these are very, very good chances that we should be putting in the back of the net.”

Harry Kane

Dominic Fifield, The Guardian: “His close-range header from Harry Maguire’s flick deep into stoppage time was a reminder he will always be England’s talismanic figure. England need more chances to fall for him given those two chances were his only real sights of goal, but they can trust in their skipper.”

The penalty

Gary Lineker: “Softest penalty ever. Ridiculous.”

Frank Lampard, BBC Sport: “You do question why Walker’s arm is up at that height. Obviously Youssef has made a meal of it, but that can happen. But what I don’t understand is why they can look at that and say it is a penalty after VAR, but not the challenges on Harry Kane.”

The flies

Harry Kane: “We got told before that there was going to be a lot of flies and when we went out for the warm-up there were more than we thought. We had some of them in our eyes and some of them in our mouth. It’s just part of dealing with whatever comes your way and the team coped with it well.”