Their head-to-head record at the World Cup, England coach Gareth Southgate duly noted, is in favor of the United States, reports UNB.

That’s right. The Americans beat England 1-0 at the 1950 World Cup and the teams played to a 1-1 draw in 2010.

“Have we ever beaten the States in a major tournament?” Southgate asked during his pre-match news conference. “No, I didn’t think so. So tomorrow we have to try to make history.”

Southgate also poked fun at England’s reputation for building up expectations as it searches for its first World Cup title since its only tournament win in 1966.

“We are good at that,” Southgate said. “We are good at talking highly of ourselves as a nation on the basis of very little evidence. So what we’ve got to do is perform on the field. We know we will play a highly motivated team.

“But we’ve got huge respect for our opponent. We know a lot of the players from our league. We’ve got to be at our best. The risk is we think because we’ve played well the other day we can just go through to the next game.”

The England team should get a boost from having striker Harry Kane available for the Group B match. Kane, who was the leading scorer at the 2018 World Cup, didn’t score in the team’s opening 6-2 rout of Iran but he did injure his left ankle.

“Harry’s good,” Southgate said. “It would be a brave decision to leave him out of the starting (lineup).”

England should also have Harry Maguire back after the defender left the opening match with blurred vision.

At the moment, he’s trying to keep his eyes focused on the World Cup and not the upheaval back at Manchester United.

Bd-pratidin English/Tanvir Raihan