World Cup results and standings<\/a><\/p>\nThat successful retry on a penalty kick was the first of Kane\u2019s first two goals as England won its World Cup opener 4-2 Wednesday over Croatia, the team that knocked the Three Lions out in the 2018 semifinals.<\/p>\n
After scoring his goals in the first half, the second a powerful header, Kane was the first person to jump on the back of Jude Bellingham after his tiebreaking goal early in the second half put England ahead for good. Then in the 94th minute, there was Kane in front of his own net on a set play, blocking a close-range shot by Croatia.<\/p>\n
\u201cSee the commitment of our captain, our No. 9,\u201d coach Thomas Tuchel said. \u201cComplete performance, absolute leader and he\u2019s all in. He\u2019s all in physically, he\u2019s all in mentally. \u2026 He\u2019s the full package. He wants it, and he leads by example.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kane\u2019s goals pushed his World Cup total to 10 and matched the English record that Gary Lineker set playing in the 1986 and 1990 tournaments. Kane, who won the Golden Boot in 2018 in Russia by scoring six times, is the first player from England to score multiple goals in three Cup appearances. He has 81 international goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously it\u2019s a great milestone to reach, to get 10 goals in a World Cup. \u2026 To reach double figures in this amazing tournament is very special,\u201d Kane said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s the first game, I\u2019m feeling good. I said before the game, physically, mentally, the goals I\u2019ve scored this year (are) at the highest level I\u2019ve ever had in my career. \u2026 I enjoy being on the pitch when I\u2019m feeling in this form.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kane didn\u2019t score in England\u2019s 2-1 semifinal loss to Croatia eight years ago in the only previous World Cup meeting between the teams. When England lost 2-1 to France in the 2022 quarterfinals, Kane missed a penalty late, sending the ball over the crossbar.<\/p>\n
This time, the 32-year-old Kane came close to another hat trick \u2014 he had one against Panama in 2018.<\/p>\n
He had seven shots, three of them on goal. Those included a pair of rapid-fire tries in close shortly after England had retaken in the lead in the second half, and he almost immediately was trying to get to another ball when he collided with a defender and ended up on the ground in front of the net.<\/p>\n
Kane\u2019s first goal in his 12th World Cup game came after Dominik Livakovic\u2019s save on his first penalty try was nullified by a video review. Both of the Croatian goalkeeper\u2019s feet were off the goal line as Kane struck the ball after an initial stutter-step.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a keeper that likes to move early and jump kind of forward early. So I knew there was a high chance that if I did stutter that he might come off the line,\u201d Kane said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t 100 percent sure that he was. I was maybe 80 percent sure he did. But obviously not ideal, I still want to score the penalty.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the second attempts, Kane went the same way toward the right post while Livakovic lunged in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n
Kane matched Lineker\u2019s mark when the Bayern Munich striker easily beat Livakovic with header off a corner kick from Declan Rice. Kane was basically alone before moving into position to make the play.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a set piece that we used,\u201d he said. \u201cJust kind of block the guys in front a little bit and just give me a bit of space.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP World Cup: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/fifa-world-cup<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By STEPHEN HAWKINS ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) \u2014 Harry Kane has already made the most of another opportunity in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[3691,150,152,151,6456,3267,3607,223,731,117504,154,29003],"class_list":["post-342671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-2026-world-cup","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-latest-headlines","tag-news","tag-soccer","tag-social-alert","tag-sports","tag-world-cup-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}