England put six past Croatia on the road

Six goals away from home against a Croatia side that still has Luka Modrić's old habits built into it is not a normal Tuesday. England found space early, kept finding it, and never really let Croatia back into a game that was supposed to be one of the tougher tests in the group.

Kane, now 33 and playing his club football at Bayern Munich, took his double in Rijeka in typically clinical fashion. For a striker who has spent the last three Bundesliga seasons scoring at a rate most forwards would sign for twice over, this was simply the international version of the same habit: find the gap, finish it, move on.

Saka matched him goal for goal, adding his own double from the right side where he has spent the last few seasons making defenders look slow. Between them, Kane and Saka accounted for four of England's six, with the rest of the scoring still being pieced together from the match report, but the story of the night was never in doubt once the second goal went in.

Second in the group, hopes boosted

A 6-2 win does more than settle one group game. It shifts goal difference, shifts momentum, and makes every other side in the section take notice before their own next fixture. England sit second in the group, and the result has boosted their hopes of reaching next summer's quarter-finals.

Croatia will have expected more resistance from themselves than this. Conceding six on home soil, even in a competition some countries still treat as secondary to World Cup and Euros qualifying, is the sort of result that gets picked apart in Zagreb long after the final whistle.

The Kane-Saka axis on the road

For Thomas Tuchel's England, who have leaned heavily on the Kane-Saka axis through recent camps, this was the clearest evidence yet that the pairing travels well outside club football. Kane's finishing and Saka's movement off the inside right have become a recognisable pattern for opposition scouts, and on this evidence, recognising it and stopping it are two very different problems.