Harry Kane: Thomas Tuchel told us to ‘take the shackles off’ at half-time

England's Harry Kane following the FIFA World Cup Group L match. Pic: Bradley Collyer/PA Wire.

England captain Harry Kane revealed boss Thomas Tuchel told his side to “take the shackles off” at half-time of their World Cup opener against Croatia.

Kane’s first-half double, which saw him equal Gary Lineker’s record of 10 World Cup goals for England, twice put them in front in Dallas, only for Croatia to hit back on both occasions after some questionable defending.

Tuchel was unhappy at the interval, describing the first half as “complicated”, and told his players he would prefer to play their own way and lose rather than repeat the first 45 minutes.

Man-of-the-match Kane said: “The manager gave a great speech to be honest. Especially after the way we conceded the second goal, just before half-time.

“He told us to let the shackles off, calm down, what are we scared of, let’s just go. The way we conceded that second goal is not the way we want to be, dropping deep, waiting and conceding.

“He said, ‘What’s the worst that can happen? We lose a game, first group game, we get on with it and move on. Let’s just go and how the world who we can be’.

“I think we did exactly that in the second half.

“The performance, with and without the ball, was at the highest level. We could have scored three goals in that 20-minute spell (after half-time).

“Physically, the guys that came on in the final 20 minutes kept the level really high and in the end we had too much for a really great team who will go far in the tournaments themselves.” 

Kane opened the scoring with a retaken penalty in the 12th minute when his original effort had been saved by Dominik Livakovic after the Croatia goalkeeper had come off his line.

The England striker’s rare fault from the spot came when he used a stuttered run-up, but he said he used it because he knew Livakovic was likely to produce an infringement.

“The stutter is a penalty I have been using for a few years, he is a keeper that likes to move early and jump forward early.

“So I knew there was a high chance that if I did stutter he would come off the line. I wasn’t 100 per cent sure he did, I was maybe 80 per cent.

“It’s not ideal, I still want to score the penalty. But going into the second one, there was a bit more pressure, a bit more mind games associated with it.

“But in that moment I trust my process, I trust myself to execute the way I want to and it’s always nice to see it go in.”