England beat Wales 2-1 in Lens on Thursday with second half goals from Jamie Vardy and Daniel Sturridge winning the game after Gareth Bale's first-half opener.
The result was no less than England deserved after dominating the match.
England were in control during the first half of the match in Lens with Raheem Sterling missing the best chance when he contrived to put high and wide from close range with the goal gaping.
So it was against the run of play when Gareth Bale scored his second goal of the tournament with his long-range free-kick finding the back of the net after 42 minutes.
The strike had pace and an element of swerve, however Joe Hart should have saved it. The Manchester City stopper got a hand to the strike but the ball still ended up in the back of the net.
Roy Hodgson made two changes at half time - bringing Jamie Vardy on for Harry Kane and replacing Raheem Sterling with Daniel Sturridge.
It proved an inspired change with Vardy turning the ball home 10 minutes into the second half from Sturridge's ball into the box. The goal initially appeared offside with Bale among those protesting wildly. However linesman Stefan Lupp did superbly to spot that the final touch before the ball reached Vardy came from the head of Wales captain Ashley Williams.
With England pressing for the winner Hodgson brough on Marcus Rashford on 72 minutes, with the Manchester United youngster becoming England's youngest ever player in the competition, beating Wayne Rooney's record set at Euro 2004 by four days.
Rashford played well, but the hero was to be Sturridge who poked home in the 92nd minute to spark wild celebrations.
The result means England are almost guaranteed to go through to the knock-out stage.
0 comments:
Post a Comment