There was a moment when we felt as though we may not get a game at all here in tropical Orlando. The storm that wrapped this city in its venom in mid-afternoon was the kind that had travelling England supporters reaching for their mobile phones to send the footage back home.
So England coach Thomas Tuchel would have taken this outcome had he been offered it when he was sheltering with his players in the team hotel an hour before scheduled kick-off. A game, a dominant performance, a win and no injuries.
There was even scope for some experimenting, too, and with that came the most intriguing vignette of England’s World Cup preparations so far.
With 25 minutes left and the score at a comfortable 1-0, Tuchel made a raft of substitutions and invited Jude Bellingham to move up from the number ten position to play at centre forward.
Moments later, Bellingham’s tricky brilliance set up Eberechi Eze for a chance that struck a Costa Rican arm. Penalty.
With the ball in Bellingham’s arms and Harry Kane off the field, England’s most newsworthy player looked set to take the kick only for the England coaching staff to appear to suggest otherwise.
Anthony Gordon scored from the penalty spot in England’s 3-0 victory over Costa Rica
The nature of the match even offered Thomas Tuchel the opportunity to experiment
Jude Bellingham was pushed into a centre forward role late on and contributed in the build-up to the awarding of England’s penalty
It was to be Anthony Gordon’s penalty and he struck England’s second goal of the game in with his right foot.
Bellingham, it must be said, was the first to congratulate his team-mate afterwards. No harm done. Maybe he was just ‘looking after the ball’ for Gordon. Only he will know.
That apart, this was all as we maybe expected as one of the World Cup favourites faced a team ranked 53 in the world and missing – for a variety of strange reasons – six of their regular starting players.
It wasn’t that Costa Rica were not enthusiastic or interested, more that they just weren’t particularly good.
Recent results – defeats to Colombia and Iran and a draw with Jordan – told the story of their current trajectory so this felt like a competitive training exercise and nothing more for England.
With Orlando battered by a 90-minute storm that saw roads flood and at least one building struck by lightning, the prelude to this game was certainly dramatic. That the kick-off was delayed by only an hour felt like a win for everybody.
Indeed the surface drained remarkably well and with a decent pitch to play on – they actually had the sprinklers on before kick-off – and a healthy crowd of English ex-pats and about 1500 travelling fans inside the stadium, England perhaps felt compelled to play with a little more verve than they had against New Zealand at the weekend.
Over the course of an engaging game, they managed to do that.
Declan Rice opened the scoring early on after the match eventually got underway in Orlando
Noni Madueke struck the post despite having an open goal after rounding the goalkeeper
Tuchel’s starting eleven was in the vague vicinity of what we may expect against Croatia in Dallas next Wednesday. With the left-sided attacking berth a scrap between Marcus Rashford and Gordon, the latter started here and was England’s best player early on.
Sometimes, a move to a big club can bring something extra from a player almost immediately. It can cause a player to puff out his chest. Gordon had the look of that here, only a couple of weeks after his move to Barcelona.
A couple of early interchanges with Nico O’Reilly were enough to carve a hole in the Costa Rica rearguard and in the tenth minute Gordon eased away from opposing right-back Shawn Johnson to cross low for Declan Rice to sweep a shot first time across the goalkeeper and in to the far corner of the net.
At this point it felt as though England may cut loose. It took their opponents half an hour to spend any time in the England half at all. When they did – after a Jordan Pickford miscue presented them with the ball – they took a resulting corner so ineptly that the ball actually ended up at the feet of their own goalkeeper.
The Costa Ricans did have a bite in some of their tackles – picking up a couple of early yellow cards – but they offered nothing in terms of their football.
Bellingham – starting here ahead of his rival for the number ten position Morgan Rogers – was finding space in which to work and his pass inside the Costa Rica left-back on the half hour released Noni Madueke who rounded goalkeeper Patrick Sequeira only to side foot his shot against the post with the whole goal to aim for.
That was the kind of miss that a player will be thankful came in a friendly. We don’t need any of that from this point on.
Just before half-time, meanwhile, Russian referee Katja Koroleva awarded a penalty after a challenge on Gordon only for VAR to prompt her to overturn the call. That was a shame because the pass to find Gordon from Bellingham had been sublime.
With the sun now out and the on-pitch temperature nudging 80 degrees, this was a physical examination for England as much as a football one. Tuchel will not have minded that. It’s the reason he brought his players to Florida after all.
Gordon was England’s best player early on as he looks to make a case to start the opening game
Ollie Watkins scored from close range late on as England wrapped up a comfortable victory
The second half saw more England dominance and they could have scored more goals. Madueke curled a shot across goal and wide after being found by a raking Kane pass. Sometimes it does pay off when the captain drops so deep.
Rogers, on as one of a raft of second half substitutes, contributed his own moment of surprise when he missed the target when it seemed easier to score. Then, at the death, a Rogers shot was saved and Ollie Watkins followed up to score.
So this was a late afternoon in Florida that worked out well for Tuchel’s England in the end. Gordon was impressive and so was Bellingham. They both advanced their cases for selection when it matters here.
As a group, England will head to their base camp in Kansas on Saturday knowing a little bit more about themselves and indeed about how it feels to play in these conditions.
The phoney war is over. The World Cup is upon us. We should all be grateful – and a little excited – about that.
