The only word to describe it is bedlam. It was certainly difficult to
make sense of that extraordinary finale other than to say that,
ultimately, Harry Kane showed everyone right at the end why Gareth
Southgate had made him captain for the day. It was the 93rd minute when
Kane denied Scotland
their “football, bloody hell” moment and, in the process, that feat of
escapology might have helped to secure him the armband on a
longer basis.
That, however, tells only part of the story on a day when both sides
experienced the exhilarating joys and excruciating disappointments of
football, all in the space of a few minutes. For Scotland, in
particular, it was an agonising way to finish a wild and eccentric
encounter. Yet England
will have their own frustrations bearing in mind they had been drifting
towards a relatively prosaic 1-0 win before all that late drama when
Leigh Griffiths brought the home crowd to a point of rare euphoria.
The two free-kicks that Griffiths expertly placed beyond Joe Hart
came in the 87th and 90th minutes and it is doubtful Hampden has ever
made a more deafening roar than when the second one curled into the
England net. Before this game, the Scottish FA had announced a
competition to find the greatest goal in the team’s history. Both of
these free-kicks could make the shortlist and at that stage Scotland
were on the verge of inflicting England’s first defeat in a qualifying
fixture since October 2009.
Kane, though, had other ideas and it was a remarkably composed finish
in the circumstances, ensuring Southgate’s team remain in a position of
strength at the top of Group F. Kane’s right-foot volley was England’s
get-out-of-jail card and the story changed again. Suddenly he was
running to the corner to celebrate and, all across the pitch, Scotland’s
players could be seen dropping to their knees.
Their grief was understandable but when they have time to reflect
they should not to be too disheartened when, to put it into context,
Gordon Strachan’s starting lineup featured three players from teams that
will begin next season in England’s second tier and a centre-half,
Charlie Mulgrew, who had just been relegated to League One with
Blackburn Rovers.
If there was an imbalance of talent, Scotland seemed determined to
make up for it in other ways. They were quick to the ball, strong in the
tackle and could never be accused of lacking effort. They also had a
captain, Scott Brown, who quickly gave the impression that whatever
England’s players encountered alongside the Royal Marines last weekend
was going to be chickenfeed compared to 90 minutes in his company.
Brown’s first challenge on Dele Alli – a reducer, to use the
old-fashioned parlance – earned him a yellow card inside the opening
three minutes and he was fortunate, in the extreme, to stay on after
another hack at the same player shortly after Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain,
one of England’s substitutes, had opened the scoring.
England had taken a while to settle but once they cleared their heads
of any early uncertainty they had enough of the ball in promising
positions to have made it a more straightforward assignment and that,
perhaps, was the biggest disappointment for Southgate. England’s
supporters had started going through their victory songs just before
Griffiths turned the game upside down. Scotland had been compared,
unfavourably, with San Marino. Indeed, the first goal from Griffiths
took place with “Scotland’s staying home” as its backdrop. Southgate was
exaggerating when he described it as “a game we were in control of for
80 minutes” but his exasperation was understandable and, without wishing
to take anything away from Griffiths, these were moments that will
bring more scrutiny on Hart’s performances.
He is not the goalkeeper he once was and Griffiths took advantage
with one 25-yard effort towards one corner and then another, from a
similar distance, into the other side. For Hart, it cannot be
satisfactory to be beaten from that distance twice in quick succession.
They were, according to Strachan, the best free-kicks he could ever
remember from all his years associated with Scotland. From a
goalkeeper’s perspective, however, neither shot was fully into the
corner.
Until those moments Scotland had so little momentum in the final
third of the pitch that Griffiths, playing as a lone striker, resorted
to a penalty-area dive earlier in the second half. England found it
difficult to get behind the opposition defence but Kane had at least
three other presentable chances, one headed off the goalline by Kieran
Tierney, and another shot from Jake Livermore came back off the post
after deflecting off the striker.
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Oxlade-Chamberlain
had been on the pitch only five minutes when he turned past Brown,
moved across the penalty area, right to left, and opened the scoring
with a rising left-foot shot and England looked relatively untroubled
until a foul by Gary Cahill gave Griffiths his first opportunity to take
aim.
Strachan reflected that he had “never heard a noise like it” when the
second one went in, leaving him on the verge of what he noted wistfully
would have been the best result of his managerial career. England,
however, set about rescuing themselves with all the competitive courage
that Southgate had talked about in the buildup to the match. It was an
onslaught once the public announcer let everyone knew there would be
four minutes of stoppage time and, finally, the substitute Raheem
Sterling picked out Kane. England needed their captain and it was an
elegant finish given the pressure on that moment and the consequences if
he had failed.
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