England exhibited a powerful dominant display in the first match of Group B of FIFA World Cup on Monday to trounce Iran 6-2.
The strength and depth of England was too much for Iran as England scored 3 goals on either half.
Such was England’s dominance that they had 82% possession in the first half. In the entire match, the possession of England was 79% and Iran only 21%.
Jude Bellingham opened the scoring with a delightful glancing header before Bukayo Saka thundered the second goal with a powerful shot. Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling teamed up for the third goal on a counter attack to complete almost a perfect first half for England.
Bukayo Sako scored his second goal in the 62nd minute to become the youngest player to score two goals in a world cup match.
Iran’s Mehdi Taremi then scored a goal for Iran, before England’s substitutes Marcus Rashford and Jack Grealish scored one goal each. Mehdi scored his 2nd goal in regulation time.
In the process, the five England players scored on World Cup debut.
Never a bad time to score your first #FIFAWorldCup goal 🦁#Qatar2022 | @England pic.twitter.com/tTQ2pvXknw
— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) November 21, 2022
In the second match of group B between USA and Wales, USA came out with a dominating first half display.
USA’s face paced high line attack prevented Wales from settling into the game.
USA had 67% possession with 350 passes as compared to 33% possession with only 180 passes for Wales.
Wales, whose last appearance in the World Cup was in 1958 in Sweden and had waited 64 years to qualify, had a disappointing display in the first half.
Wales’ star player Gareth Bale had a very poor first half having only 15 touches and getting a yellow card.
Timothy Weah of USA made a perfect finish from a pass by Christian Pulisic to give USA the lead in the 36th minute.
Wales’ introduction of Kieffer Moore in the second half appeared to have changed the balance of play.
Moore’s ability to hold the ball upfield and also to drag more players to check up opened up the spaces for Wales.
Wales also adopted a high attacking line and pressing tactic to dominate the 2nd half. In the 64th Minute Ben Davies forced a fine save from USA’s goal keeper Matt Turner. In the resulting corner kick, Moore’s powerful header went few inches high as Wales continued to press for the equalizer.
Crowd pleasers 👏📸#FIFAWorldCup | #Qatar2022 pic.twitter.com/2m2zTqf92v
— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) November 21, 2022
Gareth Bale forced a mistake from USA defender Walker around the 80th minute to earn a penalty which was converted with a perfect kick.
Gareth Bale scored his 41st goal for Wales in the process.
With England expected to qualify for the knock-out stage, the group is evenly posed for the other three teams as all the three teams i.e., USA, Wales and Iran, will fancy their chances to advance to the knock-out stage.
