England vs Tunisia: Harry Kane's brace stage dramatic win for Three Lions

England and Belgium are off the mark in Group G with a win and both sides can qualify for the knock-out stage in their next matches, while Tunisia face a vital contest against Belgium on Sunday.

England manage a hard-earned victory against a stubborn Tunisia as thanks to a  dramatic late winner by Harry Kane. The Tottenham man's brace blow away the North African country in the second match of group G. The closely fought encounter was plagued with miss-passes and ball possession swayed between the two teams frequently. The creativity in midfield and outstanding work rate helped the Three Lions to battle back from an imminent draw.

A brace from captain Kane showed that how important the Tottenham man is for England's success in the tournament. He had shared his desire to emulate Cristiano Ronaldo with a hat-trick of goals. He managed to score a brace but this, undoubtedly, was the biggest moment yet of his international career that gave England’s opening game the happy ending it deserved.

Kane was lurking unmarked, to head in Harry Maguire’s flick-on and, ultimately, nobody could say the result was unjust. The goal made a huge difference as an imminent draw threatened serious ramifications for the rest of Group G.

England were quick on the ball, slick with their passing and attacked with vigour. The pressure on Tunisia was huge but the failure to finish in the attacking third helped Tunisia to hold the scores level till the dying moments of the match. 

Kane opened the scoresheet from a corner but Tunisia’s equaliser came from a penalty termed 'controversial' from England’s perspective. Kyle Walker's jutting arm hit Fakhredinne Ben Youssef in the 34th minute that resulted into the penalty.

Southgate's men argued that it was intentional but Walker has a habit of disrupting players this way and on this occasion it backfired. Ferjani Sassi took the penalty, beating Jordan Pickford to the goalkeeper’s right. And, suddenly, England were level again in a game they had been dominating.

John Stones wasted a gilt-edged chance shortly after Tunisia’s penalty, with Dele Alli’s looping back-header being turned against the crossbar moments earlier, and there was also some splendid goalkeeping from Mouez Hassen before he was forced off with a shoulder injury.

Hassen’s reflexes had denied Lingard after only two minutes and Tunisia’s goalkeeper was highly unfortunate for England’s goal. 

Once they had the lead, the England team were far too slack in letting Tunisia back into the match, through a mix of penalty-box misses and bad luck.

The England side should have won a penalty of their own when Kane was pulled down in the same incident that led to Stones firing wide but the foul was ignored.

After the interval, England continued to press forward but lacked the same kind of penetrative edge.

A lot of work needs to be done to improve finishing of the attackers as the young England squad struggles to convert genuine chances due to lack of experience. Set pieces will clearly be key to England's progression and the side's work rate, Jesse Lingard's weaving between opposition lines and their quick reactions to counter-attacks will contribute to whatsoever success they have in this tournament. Harry Maguire's assured performance and Dele Alli's persistence will be a few positives for Gareth Southgate.

The squad had a string of missed chances in the first half and Southgate really needs to work on it if they want to succeed in a group consisting the likes of Belgium.

England and Belgium are off the mark in Group G and both sides can qualify for the next phase of the competition in their next matches, while Tunisia face a vital contest against Belgium on Sunday. 

Apart from the intense fight of two teams, the players also battled with a massive swarm of bugs that invaded the pitch at Volgograd Arena.

Here are the live updates:

Minute 90+4: Final whistle. England go home with full match points from their first encounter with Tunisia

Minute 90+3: Change for England. Dier (in) comes in for Lingard (out)

Minute 90+1: Kane scores from a corner! England need to hold the lead for 4 minutes of extra-time 

Minute 85: Change for Tunisia. Khalifa (in) replaces Khazri (out)

Minute 83: Another Goalkeeper down for Tunisia as Ben Mustapha collides with Stones mid-air. 

Minute 82:Marcus Rashford charges into the penalty box tries to pass but earns a corner instead

Minute 80:Change for England. R. Loftus-Cheek (in) comes in for Delle Alli (out)

Minute 79: Young's shot sails wide of the top post

Minute 78: England gets a free-kick just on the edge of the Tunisia box. Young to take it

Minute 73: Change for Tunisia. Ben Amor (in) comes in for Sliti (out)

Minute 69: Trippier goes curls a ball over the wall towards the bottom corner of the net. However, the ball sails wide

Minute 68: Change for England. Marcus Rashford (in) comes in for Rahim Sterling (out).

Minute 65: England continue to attack but keep giving up possession at the final third. 

Minute 51: Sterling runs towards the Tunisia defence, but loses possession when looking for a team-mate. However, Meriah puts Ben Mustapha in all sorts of trouble with his backpass, the keeper slices the ball out for a corner.

Minute 50: A sloppy start to the second half as both teams struggle to keep possession. The game is plagued by miss-passes 

Minute 47: Play resumes. Tunisia putting up a good fight as England looks for an early lead.

Things were going good for England from the beginning and Harry Kane scored a great goal to give England a deserved lead. But Kyle Walker's misadventure assured a chance for Tunisia to equalise from the spot.

Minute 44: The post saves it for Tunisia. Lingard puts a low ball past the goalkeeper but the ball goes out after hitting the outside post

Minute 39: Tunisia survives a scare. A goalline save of Delle Alli's header 

Trivia: Ferjani Sassi's goal was the first penalty that England have conceded in regular play at a World Cup since June 1998 (Argentina's Gabriel Batistuta scored the last).

Minute 35: F Sassi Tunisia scores from the spot. The first African goal of World Cup 2018

Minute 32: Tunisia wins a penalty after Kyle Walker fouls Ben Youssef. Yellow card for Walker

Minute 26: Tunisia earns their first corner.

Minute 25: Tunisia under peer pressure from the young England squad.

Minute 18: Kyle Walker releases a ball for Trippier down the right flank and he minuses a low ball into the box. It somehow misses Kane and Alli in the middle. Henderson gathers on the edge of the box and fires at goal on the half-volley, but Ben Mustapha saves it. 

Trivia: Harry Kane has scored in seven of his last eight appearances for England.

Minute 16: Ben Mustapha (in) comes off the bench to replace Tunisia's injured goalie Hassen (out)

Minute 12: Play is stopped as Tunisia's goalkeeper down.

Minute 11: Harry Kane scores from corner

Minute 6: Hassen of Tunisia falls awkwardly as he raced out to confront Lingard. Receives treatment

Minute 4: Rahim Sterling misses a golden chance to have an early lead. Fails to connect a pass from Lingard

Minute 2: Tunisia under pressure since the first whistle. 

Line-ups:

The nation credited of founding modern-day football managed to win the World Cup only once. The glory came more than half a century ago when the tournament was called Jules Rimet Trophy. Since then the Three Lions didn't manage to win any major tournament and the recent displays have been even worse. They crashed out without a win in the last World Cup four years ago, in Brazil, and haven't won a knock-out match in any tournament since 2006.

Thus a young England squad come to Russia on a mission to overcome the jinx. They boast of a solid qualifying campaign and encouraging friendly results against the likes of Brazil, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

Friendly wins over Nigeria and Costa Rica in the tune-up to the quadrennial showpiece did no harm to the mood. There is also no controversy surrounding the squad unlike in previous major meets.

Southgate's lack of experience was much fretted over when appointed but the former Under 21s coach has cultivated an atmosphere of unity and a determination to bury past failures.

"This team shouldn't be burdened with that because they're a fresh group, most of them have very few international caps, so the future is all ahead of them," Southgate told reporters at the Volgograd Arena on Sunday.

Southgate is trying his best to lift the pressure off his squad after several former players have commented recently that the expectations of past tournaments stopped them from performing at their best level.

England captain Harry Kane, who is yet to score a goal in a major tournament, has vowed to have an aggressive approach against opponents expected to defend in numbers.

"The players know the starting XI for the first game already," he said

The squad has plenty of attacking talent with Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling expected to start up front with Jesse Lingard and Dele Alli playing behind them.

That means forwards Marcus Rashford and Jamie Vardy are likely to start on the bench, giving Southgate plenty of options if his chosen strike pair fail to deliver.

The quality is thinner at the back but Southgate is hopeful that players like Harry Maguire and Kieran Trippier can turn their club form into solid displays in Russia. Southgate also has the experience of Chelsea defender Gary Cahill (58 caps) and Manchester United's Ashley Young (33 caps).

Nine players will be making their World Cup debuts against Tunisia, with Jordan Henderson in the holding-midfield role and Harry Maguire part of a three-man defence allowing Ashley Young to play as an attacking left back.

England are the third youngest team in the tournament and in Gareth Southgate, they have a coach that understands his players the most.
 

Coming to Tunisia, the North-African country is playing in their fifth World Cup but they have never managed to go beyond the group stages. Tunisia's only victory in World Cup came in 1978 when they saw off Mexico to register the first ever win by an African team on the biggest stage of world football.

The North Africans were unbeaten in their World Cup qualifying campaign but had to overcome anxious moments when they drew 0-0 with a struggling Libya and somehow managed to edge out the Democratic Republic of Congo for a ticket to Russia.

In the warm-up matches played recently, Tunisia defeated Iran and Costa Rica and drew against reigning European champions Portugal while losing 0-1 to Spain.

England and Tunisia met at France 1998 with England winning 2-0 thanks to goals from Alan Shearer and Paul Scholes.

This time around, Tunisia's biggest weakness is the lack of superstars who can lead them to victory.

The squad, dominated by locally based players, doesn't include influential midfielder Youssef Msakni and the Tunisian league's top scorer Taha Yassine Khenissi, who have both been forced out by injuries.

Defender Syam Ben Youssef is now seen as an important figure in the team as he will have to deal with some of the best-attacking talents in the world.

The 1.89m tall player, who plies his trade in the Turkish league, is good at controlling high balls, but if England put the ball behind Tunisia's defence line, the African outfit could be in real trouble.