When Gary Lineker was on 48 goals he tried to equal Bobby Charlton’s total of 49 for England with a Panenka penalty v Brazil. It was saved, and Lineker never scored for his country again. Harry Kane is a much more literal character.
When Kane got his opportunity, he followed procedure to the letter, sticking to a personal routine at penalties that is almost as set as a Jonny Wilkinson place kick. You know it: the pause for breath, the quick short run-up, the low, hard side-footed shot – usually to the goalkeeper’s left.
And then the celebration: the leap in the air, the open hand, in arrow shape, pointing at the ground. Nothing left to chance, everything rehearsed. Kane’s ability to keep repeating effective actions is why he will go on to become England’s greatest scorer but for now he is in second place, brought level with Charlton and four goals off Wayne Rooney’s record mark of 53.
Kane’s strike applied the gloss for England on what was a shabby performance in parts, against the earnest and experienced Swiss and gave Gareth Southgate the boost of a comeback victory, after Luke Shaw rescued a poor first half with an excellent strike in the period’s stoppage time, a superb Breel Embolo header having given Switzerland a deserved lead.
It was aided by VAR, which picked up the fact that when defending a corner, Steven Zuber, a Swiss substitute, stopped Marc Guéhi’s header with a raised arm. Andreas Ekberg, the Swedish referee, pointed to the spot after being called to check the replay on his monitor and the penalty was the 50th Kane has scored for club and country of his increasingly goal-laden career.
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For 20 minutes, the FA was in heaven. Evening sunlight gilded a full and happy Wembley, England were ascendant and on the pitch were rich fruits of St George’s Park development work. With Guéhi making his debut and Conor Gallagher joining Phil Foden in the support for Kane, there were three members of England’s 2017 Under-17 World Cup-winners in Southgate’s starting line up, plus Mason Mount, the star of the England Under-19 side who were European champions the same year.
And a player from England’s Under-20 World Cup-winners (again from 2017) was also given a debut: Kyle Walker-Peters, the right wing back in what Southgate clearly hoped would be an attacking version of 3-5-2. The plan was that Foden, as a second striker, would make mischief between the lines while Gallagher and Mount attacked the box from midfield and Walker-Peters and Luke Shaw got up the flanks.
During those opening 20 minutes, the strategy was working, with Foden the game’s central figure and Gallagher penetrating continually. When Foden, intelligently, fitted into space to receive a long pass from Ben White and head it to Kane, who sent Gallagher through, Southgate’s combinations produced an opening. Gallagher chopped inside Fabian Frei and went for the top corner with a left-footed curler but it didn’t quite have the height.
But the weakness in Southgate’s design was leaving Jordan Henderson isolated as the midfield’s only defensive player and Switzerland worked things out, beginning to flood the areas to Henderson’s left and right.
Making his first mistake of the game, Foden was caught in possession inside England’s half and Switzerland counterattacked quickly. Granit Xhaka slipped Silvan Widmer through, who centred and England half-cleared but then Renato Steffen played to Xhaka, who fed Xherdan Shaqiri, who rolled back the years by lofting a spinning cross of high technical quality over White to Breel Embolo, who placed a firm header back across goal. It went in at the far post, giving a rooted Jordan Pickford zero chance.
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England had no excuse for being cut open so easily and for the next ten minutes were chaotic. Shaqiri had room to try a curler form the edge of the box, Pickford touched a shot on the half-volley from Frei onto the bar, Steffen threatened with a drive, Shaqiri struck the post directly from a corner, Ricardo Rodriguez hit a wobbling shot that almost beat Pickford and Embolo miscued on the rebound.
This seemed more danger, in the space of ten minutes, than England had been under in ten World Cup qualification games and a reminder never to read too much into qualifying. Though Southgate’s starting XI featured perhaps four, and at most five, players likely to be starters in Qatar, certain fundaments just weren’t right: the openness in midfield, the wobbliness at set-pieces, the carelessness in possession, the inability to consistently get the wing backs to properly force back the opposition.
What England did do very well, however, was win the ball back – and Gallagher excelled at this especially. He was pivotal in an equaliser from Shaw that arrived contrary to the flow of the game and Walker-Peters deserved great credit too, sliding in to cut out a pass from Frei and get England back on the attack in Switzerland’s defensive third. He deflected the ball to Gallagher, who got his head up and played an intelligent square ball to the other side of the box where Mount left it cleverly and Shaw arrived and made a sweet connection to drill a rising shot past Jonas Omlin, from 20 yards out.
