Enlarge image
Come into my arms: Jude Bellingham and Bukayo Saka are the future and the present of English football
Photo:
IMAGO/Charlotte Wilson / Offside / IMAGO/Offside Sports Photography
The Architect and the Magician:
Borussia Dortmund's Jude Bellingham is the first English World Cup starting XI player without Premier League experience since Owen Hargreaves in 2006. Like the former Bayern pro, Bellingham plays at the center of the Three Lions.
And how: The 19-year-old opened the scoring with a header (35th minute), collected 113 ball contacts and directed the English game as if he had never done anything else.
And yet Bellingham was perhaps not the most conspicuous exceptional talent in Gareth Southgate's team: The 21-year-old Bukayo Saka, with Arsenal FC Premier League leaders, shone with two goals worth seeing.
Iran may not have been an acid test, but if the English youngsters continue to play like this they could spectacularly reverse coach Southgate's stereotype of conservative results football.
The result:
England won 6-2 (3-0) in the opening game of Group B, in which opponent Iran had a lot to do with themselves.
Go here for the match report.
Loud silence:
Only England is likely to play a sporting role in the tournament, but before the game the eyes of the public were focused on the opponent: In Iran, many people have been protesting since the death of the Kurd Jina Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by the vice squad in mid-September Unfreedom in the authoritarian regime.
The state meets them with violence.
The country's women in particular stand out in the resistance, but ex-professionals like Ali Daei and Ali Karimi also showed solidarity.
However, shortly before the tournament started, the national team allowed itself to be exploited for a photo shoot with President Ebrahim Raisi.
Where "Team Melli" is in conflict seemed unclear.
The fact that the Iranians were silent during the national anthem at the start of the World Cup was the loudest expression of solidarity with the demonstrators at home to date.
Quiet silence:
A non-gesture also caused a stir with the Three Lions.
Before the start of the tournament, the captain's armband with the motto "One Love" was mocked as a kowtow to the Qatari regime: What does a gesture of solidarity with discriminated groups that already shuns the colors of the official Pride flags mean?
Apparently still too much.
World governing body Fifa banned the use of the "One Love" armband, under threat of yellow cards. The captains of the European teams, who had promised solidarity, obediently followed suit.
England captain Harry Kane's "apolitical" bracelet marks Qatar's first win at the World Cup.
To the limit of unreasonableness:
The game lasted just eight minutes before it was interrupted for just as long: Iran goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand collided head-to-head with defender Majid Hosseini.
A painful collision that was repeated a little too happily in the global TV picture - and due to Beiranvand's condition resulted in a longer break in treatment.
Despite this, Iran's medical department granted Beiranvand the levity to continue the game.
An enormously dangerous decision after a head injury, which was reversed after a few minutes: Beiranvand asked for a substitution, lay down on the pitch and was carried off the field on a stretcher.
Maguire's rehabilitation:
After the break, a football game actually developed, albeit a one-sided one.
England became really dangerous for the first time when Harry Maguire headed the crossbar (32nd).
Before Bellingham's opening goal, Maguire, who was often derided as an error-prone gross motorist and who has a difficult time in his home country in terms of sport and media, played a strong opening pass through the Iranian defense lines.
The "slabhead", the "square skull", seems to be back in tournament form in time for the World Cup.
Happy target shooting:
followed by goals.
Lots of goals.
And a lot of stoppage time, 14 minutes in the first half, ten minutes in the second which became 13 minutes for Iran after a late penalty.
A brief outline: Saka volleys under the crossbar with his left (43'), Raheem Sterling dynamically jumps into a half-high cross from Kane (45'+1').
Saka scores again after a remarkable dribbling (62'), Mehdi Taremi shortens with the first Iranian chance (65'), Marcus Rashford's first action after being substituted on restores the old gap (71').
Jack Grealish is also allowed (89'), Taremi uses a penalty kick after John Stones has pulled his jersey to score the second consolation goal (90'+13').
6: 2 after 117 minutes, not much more is possible.
It won't be any less exciting:
In Group B it remains the same: Iran is outsider, England favorite.
However, the other games should be sportingly interesting and also politically explosive: The group opponents are USA and Wales, in the evening (8 p.m., TV: ZDF/Magenta) they will face each other in a direct duel.