Lee Carsley has made a winning start as interim manager of the England national team. Goals from Declan Rice (11th minute) and Jack Grealish (26th minute) secured a 2-0 win over the Republic of Ireland in their Nations League opener.
Lee Carsley has made a winning start as interim manager of the England national team. Goals from Declan Rice (11th minute) and Jack Grealish (26th minute) secured a 2-0 win over the Republic of Ireland in their Nations League opener.
Rice and Grealish both scored within 15 minutes of the first half to answer boos from the home fans at the Aviva Stadium for making the switch from Ireland to England as youngsters. Rice refused to celebrate his goal, which he scored from the center of the box, but Grealish, who returned to the team after being left out of the Euro 2024 squad, enjoyed his moment after finding the corner after Rice's break.
England fans hoping to see a more attacking style than Gareth Southgate can take heart from the performance of the Three Lions in today's match.
Ireland, who are starting a new era under their new coach Heimir Hallgrimsson, showed an improvement in their play in the second half.
In the end, though, the two goals proved enough for England to begin the post-Southgate era with a win. In doing so, the team topped Group B2 of the Nations League.
In Group A, Germany thrashed Hungary 5-0 in a home match played in Dusseldorf.
Jamal Musiala had two goals for the Bundesliga, while Niklas Fulkrug, Florian Wirtz, Aleksandar Pavlovic and Kai Havertz scored.
In the 27th minute, West Ham forward Niklas Fulkrug capitalized on a Dominik Soboslay error to open the scoring for Germany.
The rest of the goals came after the break. Bayern Munich star Musiala was assisted by Florian Wirtz to make it 2-0 in the 58th minute. Wirtz himself made the score a classic 8 minutes later. Pavlovic and Havertz were on target in the 77th and 81st minutes respectively to make the final 5-0.
Here are the rest of the results from the opening round of the Nations League:
Netherlands - Bosnia and Herzegovina 5:2
Georgia - Czech Republic 4:1
Greece - Finland 3:0
Ukraine - Albania 1:2
Faroe Islands - North Macedonia 1:1
Armenia - Latvia 4:1
Moldova - Malta 2:0. | BGNES
