West Ham captain Declan Rice delivered an encouraging message to England starlet Jude Bellingham before both starred in the win against Iran.
The Three Lions got their World Cup campaign off to a fantastic start on Monday with a 6-2 victory. Wales’ draw with USA later in the day leaves England top of Group B by two points.
Borussia Dortmund teenager Bellingham grabbed his first international goal with the opener after 35 minutes in the Khalifa International Stadium. Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka scored a brace and Raheem Sterling, Marcus Rashford and Jack Grealish would add to the tally, with Porto’s Mehdi Taremi scoring two consolation goals for the Iranians.
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Bellingham, who is the youngest player in the England squad at 19, is the latest teenage star tipped to become one of the country’s greats in the future. Rice revealed to the Evening Standard that he told his midfield partner to "go and flourish" before Bellingham became only the second teenager, after Michael Owen, to score for the Three Lions at a World Cup.
The West Ham midfielder said: “We have played together four or five times now. I said to him in the tunnel: ‘This is your stage, go and flourish. I’ll be there behind you to sweep up and give you the ball for you to go and do your thing’.
“I know my role in this team. I am there to stand in front of the back four, protect, get on the ball and move it around. I feel like we did that really well [against Iran]. We stuck to the game plan and, in the end, the spaces opened up. You saw the goals we scored with some really lovely play.”
Despite reaching the Euro final last year, England’s odds of lifting the World Cup in Qatar were slashed after a poor Nations League campaign in the run-up to the tournament. Southgate’s side were relegated from League A after failing to win any of their six games against Hungary, Italy and Germany.
However, Rice believes England managed to prove critics wrong with their win against an Iran side that have had some impressive results in recent months. “It was a positive start. There was a lot of doubts about us before the tournament,” said Rice.
“There has been a lot of talk about us not winning in our last six matches. By our standards, with the players we have got, we know that it hasn’t been good enough. But this was a World Cup stage and you could see there was a fire in our bellies. We wanted to prove a lot of people wrong.
“People will say ‘it’s only Iran’ but they have had some good results at past World Cups. In September, they beat Uruguay and drew with Senegal.”
England return to action on Friday against USA before their final group game versus Wales on Tuesday, with both games kicking-off at 7pm.
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