England captain Harry Kane revealed a half-time team talk from Thomas Tuchel to "let the shackles off" inspired England to victory against Croatia in their opening match of the 2026 World Cup.
Kane scored twice in the first half to draw level with Gary Lineker's England record of 10 World Cup goals. However, Croatia fought back twice through Martin Baturina and Petar Musa five minutes into time added on at the end of the half.
England's defending for both Croatia goals was questionable, and captain Kane said Tuchel told the players to let go of their fears and focus on getting at their opponents.
“The manager gave a great speech to be honest," Kane told reporters. "Especially after the way we conceded the second goal, just before half-time.
“He told us to let the shackles off, calm down, what are we scared of, let’s just go. The way we conceded that second goal is not the way we want to be, dropping deep, waiting and conceding.
“He said, ‘What’s the worst that can happen? We lose a game, first group game, we get on with it and move on. Let’s just go and show the world who we can be’.
“I think we did exactly that in the second half."
That they did; England flew out of the blocks and forced Croatia goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic into several fine saves before Jude Bellingham and Marcus Rashford sealed a 4-2 victory in Dallas.
“The performance, with and without the ball, was at the highest level. We could have scored three goals in that 20-minute spell [after half-time].
“Physically, the guys that came on in the final 20 minutes kept the level really high and in the end we had too much for a really great team who will go far in the tournaments themselves.”
Kane opened the scoring with a retaken penalty in the 12th minute when Dominik Livakovic had saved his original effort after the Croatia goalkeeper had come off his line.
The England striker’s rare fault from the spot came when he used a stuttered run-up, but he said he used it because he knew Livakovic was likely to produce an infringement.
“The stutter is a penalty I have been using for a few years; he is a keeper that likes to move early and jump forward early.
“So I knew there was a high chance that if I did stutter he would come off the line. I wasn’t 100 per cent sure he did; I was maybe 80 per cent."
Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic conceded his team played poorly in the second half and that the final scoreline flattered them.
Dalic, who is widely tipped to take over the vacant head coach's position with the UAE national team after the World Cup, told HRT: “We played a very bad second half.
"In the first half, we conceded two goals from two set pieces, the first after a penalty. We didn’t do some things well.
"We conceded the third goal after a long ball and saw how difficult it was to come back into the game. We reacted poorly to the deep ball and rotated poorly.”
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