Tuchel hails England’s defensive display in victory | OneFootball

England thrashed Serbia 5-0 this Tuesday in Belgrade, thus securing their fifth victory in five matches of the European Qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup, once again without conceding any goals.

The English team, the European runner-up, leads Group K with 15 points, well ahead of Albania (2nd, with 8 points after a 1-0 victory over Latvia) and Serbia (3rd, 7 points), their seemingly toughest rival, which, however, has one game less.

Defensive Solidity

The English have scored 13 goals, without conceding any, before the last three rounds of the Qualifiers, scheduled for October and November.

Besides the good result, this time they managed to elevate their level of play like never before under the command of coach Thomas Tuchel, who took over in January.

“We played with a lot of intensity, worked hard, it was teamwork in its purest form. We showed our quality, prevented Serbia from shooting on goal, gave them no chances, and to achieve this, you need to work hard,” declared Tuchel in an interview with ITV1.

The Match

In Tuesday's match, star player Harry Kane opened the scoring in the 33rd minute, marking his 74th goal in 109 matches for the English team.

Noni Madueke (35′) and Ezri Konsa (52′) paved the way for the ‘Three Lions’ victory.

Marc Guéhi increased the lead in the final stretch (75′), after the expulsion of Serbian captain Nikola Milenkovic, and then Marcus Rashford sealed the score with a penalty just before injury time (90′).

Qualifiers Format

In total, 16 European teams have guaranteed spots in the World Cup, which for the first time in history will feature 48 participants.

The 12 winners of each group in the European Qualifiers qualify directly, and the remaining four spots are determined by playoffs involving the 12 second-place finishers in the groups.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.