Harry Kane believes England’s blistering qualification campaign has shown what Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup contenders are capable of.
The Euro 2024 runners-up are among the favourites for glory in North America next summer and a nation others will want to avoid in the December 5 draw.
England secured their spot at the finals with two games to spare and on Sunday completed a perfect qualification campaign, with Kane’s brace in a 2-0 triumph in Albania making it eight wins and eight clean sheets.
It is the first time a European team has achieved that feat when playing at least six World Cup qualifiers and underlined the potential of Tuchel’s side.
«Whenever you’re creating history, it shows that you’re on the right path,» England captain Kane said.
«I think we’ve had a lot of great qualifying campaigns in recent history and we’ve topped that with this one, so we can be really proud of the hard work that we put in.
«I know sometimes we maybe don’t get the credit for these type of wins and campaigns, but we’ve done our job, we’ve done what we need to do and we’ve done it in style as well.
«We can be really proud of that and look forward to the new year now.»
England now only have two March friendlies before Tuchel names his World Cup squad as the back-to-back Euros runners-up seek to build on their near misses under Gareth Southgate.
Asked if they have sent a message to the rest of the world with their flawless campaign, Kane said: «Whether it’s a message or not (I am not sure), I think it just shows what we’re capable of.
«Not conceding a goal in all that time is obviously a great achievement in itself and the bottom line is clean sheets win you tournaments.
«Clean sheets got us to two finals and semi-finals, and when you get to the biggest games you need to be solid, you need to be compact, you need to be able to defend your box and we’ve shown we can do that.
«Then you add the players that we have in attack and in midfield, we’re a tough team to beat.
«But there’s a long way to go, we’re not going to get carried away. I think that’s the special nature of this group.
«We’re just looking forward to the next camp, obviously a little while now, but we go away, we rest up, and then we come back together in March and try to continue this momentum.»
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England will be praying Kane can maintain his own form, having taken his goal tally to 28 for club and country this season.
«It’s hard to take it in,» the Bayern Munich striker added. «When you’re on a roll like this, you just want the next game to be around the corner.
«I spoke before in the (pre-match) press conference that it’s probably the best form I’ve been in and just the best overall play that I feel I’m playing at the highest level.
«We’ll see how many we can get. A long way to go in the season, so if I can continue this type of form and this type of run, it should be quite a big number come the end.»
