Photograph: Mike Egerton/PA
Harry Kane will travel to the European Championship in France braced to contend with underhand tactics from opposing centre-halves but confident he will be able to leave his own more legitimate mark on the finals.
The England forward was the victim of a wild lunge by Portugal’s Bruno Alves in Thursday’s final friendly ahead of the tournament and despite not reacting to the challenge, played the rest of the match sporting scratches on the side of his head and shoulder. The defender was dismissed by the Italian referee, Marco Guida, for the challenge, with England eventually securing a 1-0 success against the depleted opposition.
Both Kane and his inexperienced Tottenham club-mate Dele Alli, who served a three-match ban at the end of the domestic campaign for throwing a punch at West Bromwich Albion’s Claudio Yacob, will arguably be marked men at Euro 2016, with their temperaments under scrutiny. Kane said: “But that’s international football and you’ve got to be ready for that. People are going to tread on your toes, kick you heels, pinch you. It’s part of the game. You can’t rise to it and you’ve got to stay focused. What I try and do is play my own game and stick a few in the back of the net.
“A lot of English players are known not to go down as easy as those from other countries. We’ll see what happens come the tournament but, hopefully, the referees stay strong. We know we’ve got to be a bit cuter but if the refs are on their game like he was on Thursday, we’ll be fine. I’m always someone who gets up and doesn’t make the most of it. Obviously international football is a bit different, it’s something maybe we can learn from and look at, and do things better, but the ref made the right decision in the end.
“I think Dele’s learned from that [incident with Yacob]. He knows international football is a lot more strict than the Premier League, and he’ll be doing all he can to keep his head and maintain his cool. I’m sure he’ll have learned from stuff in the past.”
Kane has admitted England struggled to implement their diamond formation effectively against the Portuguese as the Tottenham forward and Jamie Vardy drifted too wide to accommodate Wayne Rooney’s presence in the middle. “We’d been working on it in training, trying different systems, and we went with the diamond but they made it difficult when they went down to 10 men,” he added.
“They really dropped off and shut up the middle of the pitch. Jamie and I felt we had to go a bit wider to get the ball and in hindsight, maybe we should have stayed a bit closer together.
“It’s something we’ve got to learn from. The manager’s got to pick his team and his formation for the first game against Russia [in Marseille next Saturday] and we’ve got to be ready and prepared for whatever that is. I’m used to playing centrally, but I’m there to do a job for the team and whatever the manager wants me to do. We’ll see who the manager picks and I’ll be ready to go.”
Ryan Bertrand will return to full training in Chantilly next week after recovering from a slight muscular injury, which kept him out of the game against Portugal.
