90min

Twitter reacts as England thump Iran in opening World Cup game

By Jack Gallagher

An easy win for England
An easy win for England / Justin Setterfield/GettyImages
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England recorded their second biggest ever World Cup win to kick off their 2022 campaign in Qatar, beating Iran 6-2.

Goals from Raheem Sterling, Jude Bellingham, Jack Grealish, Marcus Rashford and a brace from Bukayo Saka secured the statement win.

One of the many talking points pre-game was the news that FIFA's ticketing app crashed meaning that fans couldn't even get into the stadium.

The tournament = going as expected

The press - like our very own Scott Saunders, who managed to get into the stadium - were pleased that the air conditioning was working at least.

The next real talking point proved to be this collision:

After quite a few minutes of checks, amazingly, the Iran medical staff said they were happy enough to let goalkeeper Kaleci Beiranvand continue, despite very clearly not being in a good way.

After play re-started however, the goalkeeper asked to be subbed off.

Sense prevailed purely because a concussed man had more sense than an unconcussed medical staff. Brilliant stuff.

When play re-started it was all England. Harry Maguire would hit the crossbar with a header...

Before Jude Bellingham popped up in the box to beautifully head home a Luke Shaw cross from the left flank.

Bellingham was born in 2003.

And he's scored in a World Cup.

Things got even better for the Three Lions and, in particular, their young stars as Bukayo Saka scored a stunning second goal near the end of the first half.

The Arsenal star latched onto a Maguire knock down following a corner kick to volley into the top right corner of the net.

Moments later, it was 3-0.

Harry Kane crossed into Raheem Sterling - England's perennial tournament star - who used the outside of his foot to steer into the net.

England's dominance continued into the second half and they deservedly made it 4-0 thanks to Saka.

The Arsenal forward cut in from the right flank, embarrassed a few hapless Iran defenders and curled in his second goal of the game.

Despite being quite a bad football team, Iran did manage to get a consolation goal in the 65th minute through their star man Mehdi Taremi.

The forward capitalised on some slack England defending to fire off the crossbar and into the net.

A nice finish to be fair.

That moment of joy for Iran fans proved to be just that: a moment.

England brought on four substitutes and one of them, Marcus Rashford, came straight off the bench to make it 5-1.

Before the final whistle could blow, there was time for England to score a sixth.

The sixth would come from Jack Grealish who tapped in after being squared the ball by the unselfish Callum Wilson.

Incredibly, in the 103rd minute of the game, a VAR check led to penalty being awarded, and scored, by Iran.

Taremi converted it.

A much needed statement win and performance from Gareth Southgate's men to kick-off their campaign Qatar.

David Goldblatt & Katie Rood join Shebahn Aherne to have football's climate conversation about the World Cup in Qatar!

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