The most goals Croatia had conceded in any previous home match was four. England had five after 53 minutes and ploughed on, winning 7-0 in a ruthless Nations League victory that marks the Croatians’ heaviest-ever defeat.
Thomas Tuchel’s side were devastating in Rijeka, giving a schooling to Slaven Bilic’s team, who were quite simply not at the races.
In front of 100 “hardcore” England fans and 6,200 Croatian schoolchildren in a match officially played “behind closed doors” due to a UEFA sanction against their hosts, all four members of England’s scintillating front four scored in the first half, and there were a further three strikes to come after the interval. England were scintillating throughout.
Barnstorming win against big rivals
It was England’s tenth game against Croatia since 2004 and their sixth since 2018, and this meeting brought more familiar foes than some of those fixtures - Bilic back in charge, having twice beaten Steve McClaren’s England and twice lost to Fabio Capello’s England before 2010.
The Three Lions had no time for sentimentality. They made Croatia look like “a Gibraltar-type team”, Roy Keane said on punditry for ITV after the game. It was hard to disagree.
Croatia were so poor, making horrific errors that culminated in Josip Stanisic’s awful square ball right into Bukayo Saka to score. England, though, were as good as Croatia were miserable. It was their finest performance under Tuchel and a show of the attacking quality they have to rival the very best teams in the world.
Saka scored twice, Harry Kane also helped himself to a brace, and Jude Bellingham tallied a goal and three assists. The Real Madrid star was comfortably the best player on the pitch and keeps finding a new highest level to top his last.
Anthony Gordon, with a smart header, and late substitute Morgan Rogers, with a skilful solo counter-attack, also found the net in a sensational victory.
Midfield mismatch?
On paper, it looked a mismatch in midfield. Elliot Anderson and - on his second cap and first start - Alex Scott had just 20 caps between them. The midfield they were up against of Luka Modric and Mateo Kovacic had 323, by sharp contrast.
But men against boys it was not, and if anything it was England’s double pivot that gave Croatia’s a lesson in control, counter-pressing and how to run a game from the middle of the park.
“It was hard work in midfield,” said Scott, “But that’s what we’re best at: being intense.”
Scott skipped past Kovacic for the opener, scored by Kane, and Anderson was electric, bombing forward to assist Kane’s second goal but also giving Croatia no time on the ball. A fantastic pass to the wily Ivan Perisic from outside of the boot was the extent of Modric’s threat going forward. For what felt like the first time, he truly looked like a player in his 40s.
Saka stars at just the right time
Coming into the game, it felt an important evening for Bukayo Saka and a match in which he needed to show something extra-special.
The Arsenal man had been a frustrating watch four days earlier against the Czech Republic and put in one of England’s most disappointing individual performances in Prague.
In Rijeka, it was a different story entirely. Saka regularly made shrewd decisions as England purred on the Adriatic. The second goal of the game was scored by Bellingham and assisted by Gordon but owed so much to the glance up and gliding ball that Saka played over the top for the Barcelona winger to pluck from the sky and deliver to Bellingham.
Right on half time, Saka was in the right place to convert from close range from a Bellingham cross and he obliged after the interval as Kane unselfishly laid off. The finish was resounding.
It could and should have even been a hat trick and a 20th international goal for the 25-year-old when Bellingham drove the ball across the danger area. Saka got it all wrong, slashing over from very close range.
Luckily it mattered not, in part because of his own fine work earlier in the game. He reminded Tuchel why he is England’s clear first-choice on the right flank, on a night when England reminded us why they are one of the very best teams around.
