England’s clash with Panama ended as a historic beatdown.
The Three Lions scored early and often against the CONCACAF side, cruising to a dominant 6-1 win on Sunday. The win puts England level on points with Belgium while Panama remains winless after losing to the Belgians in their opener.
The beatdown began in the eighth minute as John Stones got on the end of Kieran Trippier corner kick to kickstart the England scoring blitz. Harry Kane was then on the board 14 minutes later, scoring his first of two penalty kicks on the day.
Jesse Lingard made it three with the best goal of the bunch in the 36th minute, finishing on a wonderful piece of build-up play with Raheem Sterling. The Manchester United midfielder’s finish was a curled effort from outside of the box, pushing the scoreline to 3-0.
Following Stones’ second finish of the day, Kane fired his second penalty kick in stoppage time of the first half, making it 5-0 heading into the second 45.
Kane completed his hat-trick early in the second half, bu didn’t know much about the shot that ended up being his third. Kane’s finish was a deflection of a Ruben Loftus-Cheek effort, pushing the score to 6-0.
In the 78th minute, though, Panama got their feel-good moment, scoring their first goal at the World Cup. Felipe Baloy provided the finish from a free kick, firing past Jordan Pickford to send the Panama fans into a frenzy.
England will now look to win the group in a heavyweight clash with Belgium while Panama will hope to seal a World Cup point or three against Tunisia in their tournament finale.
MAN OF THE MATCH
Recognition could go to any number of England players, but Lingard, in particular, was dangerous and impactful in the Three Lions attack.
MOMENT OF THE MATCH
Stones’ opening goal opened the floodgates and removed any hope of Panama brawling their way to a result on Sunday.
MATCH TO FORGET
As difficult as it is to pick a Man of the Match, it’s perhaps even more difficult to single out one Panama player for a bad game. Defensively, Panama was shambolic and, as the defensive leader, Roman Torres will be frustrated by his team’s performance.
This bad for MLS: shows MLS is crap & advertising that MLS below to Chinese League
Note: USNT destroyed Panama 6-0 thanks Torres & Baloy
Nothing sweeter than seeing the raw, awful thuggery of CONCACRAP exposed for the world to see. The only team that plays with anything resembling the beautiful game is Mexico – more power to them. It would be so nice if the US could somehow shed its reliance on only power and size and just entertain, just once, the notion of skill and instinct when filling its rosters…man, that will be a good day. I mean, Corona, Lazano, Guardado, Vela, Chicharito, hell, they’re just too damn small to play US soccer, right crappy narrow-minded D-1 A Licensed US soccer coaches?
I did not get to enjoy the Panamanian drubbing. So far the game in this WC that stands out as an example of two thuggish teams going at was the Sweden S. Korea game. Neither team showed any creativity and both defended with big doses of violence. A Swedish player made a tactical foul tackling a Korean from behind with both hands around his body and then stomped on the Koreans Knee when he fell. Yet the referee who also gets my vote for worst so far in this WC did not issue a card.
I was glad to see both fail in their second game I hope never to see that referee again.
It’s a shame that this match didn’t finish 10-0 with 5 Panamanian red cards.
what offends me about non-mexico, non-canada, non-usa (and sometimes non-costa rica concacaf nations isn’t their skill level. it’s their continual fouling, their dirty play, their lack of respect for the rules of the game.
every once in a while, one of these teams will do something good. but by and large, the bad seemingly always outweighs the good.
concacaf’s problems run deep. and i suppose there is no quick fix. i guess with the concacaf nations league coming this fall and the expanded wc format coming, we’ll have lots of opportunities to address the problems with our soccer confederation.
like the uruguay-saudia arabia match on june 20, i think england showed panama too much respect. i think uruguay was being nice (for whatever reason) and could have pressed saudi arabia a lot harder and with more numbers and i think they could easily have forced more turnovers and scored more goals. and i think england could have done the same with panama. i think england was being nice to panama (again, forwhatever reason), it could have been 10-0 england if they really wanted to.
Guess I did get into it. Just stunned if u know JK, his history, experience, and what real soccer people think about him….not his PR guy, author or friends, that u can say he wasn’t to blame. Just shows why leaders can lead anywjhere….the qualities translate to anything, and why most don’t get it….very few true leaders out there who understand what it takes to make an entity work. Social nedia has trukly helped the ignorant and easily manipulated more than anyone else. Sad.
I’m not getting into this…but if u think JK has no blame u r crazy. Rome wasn’t built in a day and it didn’t fall in a day. Terrible leaders erode the base over time, and once Sunil stupidly gave him that extension a year before the cup he had totalitarian power and our fate of continued erosion was sealed. Anyone who thinks JK should be in charge of anything will never be a leader or in charge of much of anything of importance in their. He is a salesman and savvy populist politician, who knows how to manipulate. He can’t lead, manage, doesn’t have the wok ethic, or neccessary tactical brains needed. I would be more shocked but humans are easily manipulated through populism, lack of knowledge and emotion. JK’s tactics to gain control r more in line with what rulers in Turkey and Venezuela have done more recently. Same process. Problem is once they r in charge and in control it’s to late…..and it’s the very same populace that cheered them on as saviours in the beginning.
This what terribel leadership does….breaks thimgs down over time. In a time when there is more research, coach control, game planning and tactics involved in football than any in history….our guy was all about go out and express yourself, and stay at home in Cali and worry about it later.
Insane.
Funny how I always championed and defended Bradley over Arena or JK,,,,and he was mocked and despised by the overwhelming majority if US fans. Yet time has proven who is easily the best coach of the three. Easily. Unfortunately populism, lack of knowledge and emotion trump that oh so often. Hard work, a quiet mouth and ability are no match for the blather of Arena and sheer con artist, incompetent idiocy of a JK…..and emotionally limited fans.
Wow! You seem to know JK personally and understand him a lot. Are you by any chance, Landon Donovan in disguise?
I’ve met him several times, my dad played in the Bundesliga and I have followed his career closely. Nothing in his coaching resume says he has the ability. Nothing. In Germany coaches and players know he doesn’t have it. Politician, populist JK knows who to take ad of the folks who know him the least…but he tells them what they want to hear and he makes them feel good! Even as a player he was brilliant at it, left places having the masses like him, but the people on the inside were always happy to see him go. In Germany they had enough of him and were gonna can hum after a number of poor perfromances capped by a 4-1 Italy crushing. Ballack and Lowe met with him and only the did he change his pathetic system. At Bayern he is comsidered a joke and they said it took 3 years to undue the harm he caused. At TFC he ruined the whole culture and made them a joke for years as they lsitened to him implicitly. He saw a weak sitaution here, the same at Germany at the time, which is the only reason he was hired …..no one else wanted the job….and just did what any incompetent does over time. Erode the whole system. The man’s resume speaks for itself. It’s not that good, but the clueless r easy to sucker. The insecurity and self loathing here made us a prime target and the snake oil salesman took advantage. Anyone who thinks this guy has a clue….no matter what issues we have here….shows their incompetence.
Cool its Landon! Hey Landon
Agree that panama should have had countless cards in game against us that would have greatly impacted eligibility and likely results. Oananma dis not really earn a birth, they were gifted a goal against Costa Rica as ball never crossed line. However, JK has no blame in US not making cup because US was back in third place after arenas first two games. They recovered from bad start and then blew it. No one defended,Pulisic who was targeted. Its on players and arena but really mostly players. US like panama did not deserve to be at the cup.
The Hex isn’t the WC. Go back in history and look at the records of Panamanian and Honduran teams, at all ages and levels, when they reach the WC. They overwhelmingly get crushed or are an embarrassment. There are maybe one or two exceptions. If the Hex had been reffed like the WC how many more fouls, yellows, reds and penalties, would have been called on them? In the US 4-0 win they should have easily had five to six yellows…par for the course for them. When they can’t play hack and mug they have nothing. Doesn’t excuse the total US breakdown manufactured by terrible leaership (Gulati and con artist JK), but that is reality. Hell, when the US U20’s beat Hondo in the regional final two years ago, a family friedn who offciates in the 2 Bund watched in horror. He said there were 6 yellow and two easy reds in that match….Honso got one yellow, and Justin Glad and EPB were targeted and injured for several mths. The way ot is, and it don’t help the region or those teams improve. Sad.
All i could think watching this is that this Panamanian team managed to perform better in the hex down the stretch than we did. Hurts just that much worse. Embarassing really.
Swifty, better in the Hex down the stretch than we did? We smoked them in the second to last game, and their win over CRC came on a dubious goal. But yeah, Panama really put the hammer down to close out the Hex and edge out “much more better-equipped to play big nations” sides like Honduras and yes, even the U.S.
Anyone who followed the Hex knows that two teams qualified on merit and the rest was a race to “less suck” than the other. It’s unfortunate that the team with the least amount of actual soccer talent lucked out and qualified.
It embarrasses me as a fan of a CONCACAF side, but I’ve long moved past the embarrassment of not qualifying. As long as we learn from it, it could set us up well going forward. What were we gonna do in Russia anyway with an aging side that those in power refuse to move out? Anybody with a brain knew this Panama side would take its lumps once the draw came out. England even showed up to play and made it worse than envisioned.
I wouldn’t be so quick to give them credit for the dubious goal. CD’s near bacon-saving post-hitter in Couva was more of a generated chance. And heck, OG’s OG was pretty fluky in and of itself. I’m just as, if not more gutted by two bad performances against Costa Rica (seriously, we played better vs. El Tri) and letting Rafa get loose late in Game 1 of the HEX.
The USMNT failed to qualify because we lost our identity while trying to become things we just aren’t (thanks Sunil and JK), and this led to unexpected results. We need to embrace what we are as a soccer nation/culture and not try to copy societies we have nothing in common with when it comes to the beautiful game.
Dude we had a game like this against Panama right before TnT
For both of you. I watched every game of the hex and i am not implying that they were a better team, only that they managed to do something we could not over the course of the ten games. Yes they got in on a dubious goal, but at least they created that dubious goal. We did not. And even if this was a race to “less suck,” the fact thay they qualified over us means that down the stretch they sucked less than we did.
Now dont get me wrong, i fully believe that we are far better team than panama as evidenced by the very win you both referenced, but we repeatedly failed to live up to our potential. For me that is embarassing. Can you honestly sit there and tell me that panamas performance today doesnt embarass you when if you thought of the worlds perpective. To them, “this team made it over the USA? Hahahahaha!” That is why it is embarassing. We had every reason to succeed and still failed and now the team that managed what we couldnt is getting rocked by the elites.
All that being said, i am excited for the future, the coming crop of players is better than ever AND they now have a chip on their shoulders which means we now have or soon will have the talent to compete on the world stage AND the determination and grit that made us perform above our talent level for the past few decades. Thoughts?
Now the world sees what thugs Panama are.
Harry Kane can win the Golden Boot if England plays Panama 3 times in group stage. ???