England thrashed Albania by 5-0 at Wembley Stadium in a crucial World Cup qualifier clash on Friday night.
Gareth Southgate’s side enjoyed a pretty comfortable night after scoring five goals before the interval. Harry Kane scored a brilliant hat-trick and the other two were scored by Harry Maguire and Jordan Henderson.
Following this victory, England has solidified the top spot in their group even more and are only one point away from securing a place in the World Cup 2022. On the other hand, Albania is sitting third in the group with 15 points in nine games.
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England 5-0 Albania:
After enjoying an excellent first half of the game, the Three Lions didn’t try to extend the scoreline and tried to manage the game by keeping the ball possession.
After the game England boss, Gareth Southgate was delighted with his team’s first-half display and stated that it was a great performance after a disappointing result last time around against Hungary. Southgate said on the official Website:
“The first half was fantastic, as well as we have played for a long time. It is always difficult to maintain that when you are so far ahead. We had so much adrenaline in the first half. We were still professional in the second half, just unfortunately we couldn’t get the crowd more goals.
“I think we are best when we have an edge and we didn’t produce what we should have against Hungary. We needed to put that right. We had a game tonight to put us on the verge of qualification for a World Cup – simple as that.”
The hat-trick hero Harry Kane is also thrilled about his team’s performance and said on the official website:
“It was an incredible performance really. The pressure was on us a little today. We needed a result coming off the last game where we didn’t finish how we wanted to. I can’t praise the lads enough, it was a great way to get closer to qualifying.”
The Upcoming fixtures for both teams:
England will encounter San Marino in the final game of the group on Monday night and Albania will welcome Andorra at the same time.
Poland is currently second in this group with 20 points and is hoping for a slip up of the Three Lions on the final day which is highly unlikely, given the opposition is San Marino. The White and Red will encounter Hungary in the last game at the same time to keep their hopes alive to qualify for the World Cup 2022 as a group leader.
Otherwise, they will have to go down through the playoffs route to book their ticket for Qatar next year in November.
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