{"id":1038447,"date":"2026-06-20T08:29:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T08:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1038447\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T08:29:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T08:29:15","slug":"emmanuel-petit-names-england-star-set-to-cost-them-the-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1038447\/","title":{"rendered":"Emmanuel Petit names England star set to cost them the World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Emmanuel Petit is \u2018very confident\u2019 in England at the World Cup after their 4-2 win over Croatia but picked out one player who could cost them the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>A first-half brace from Harry Kane and goals after the break from Jude Bellingham and Marcus Rashford <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.football365.com\/news\/opinion-tuchel-fuming-attack-dog-why-england-win-world-cup\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">gave Thomas Tuchel\u2019s side a flying start to the World Cup<\/a><\/strong>, and Petit is confident the Three Lions can make a deep run into the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCroatia is a great country; it\u2019s a huge team, but I\u2019ve been very confident from the start with England,\u201d <a rel=\"noopener nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/talksport.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">he said on talkSPORT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy? Because the fluidity, the movement, the pace, the intensity, there were the commitment as well. Everything was right from the start. And I was very, very happy to see that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.football365.com\/news\/england-player-ratings-croatia-kane-bellingham-madueke\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">England player ratings: Kane, Bellingham, Madueke star in wild 4-2 win over ageing Croatia<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The former Arsenal and Chelsea midfielder, who won the World Cup with France in 1998, insists captain Harry Kane is pivotal to their chances this summer after enjoying his all-action display in the opening game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is one player particularly that impressed me a lot and that\u2019s Harry Kane,\u201d he added. \u201cYou put aside the two goals he scored; it was his defensive work too.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the end of the game, he was the last defender and he put his body just in front of the striker. And I thought to myself, this is typical of a central defender, and he was acting exactly the same way.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter where he is on the pitch; he always does exactly what he takes, you know, in the middle of the park, defensively, up front. He always does the right things all the time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s the leader of this team and you can see that it spreads to his teammates. He enjoys what he\u2019s doing, and he plays with so much confidence and he\u2019s so dedicated to the national team. This is for me, something really, really important when it comes from your leader.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Always feel like something could happen\u2019<\/p>\n<p>But, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.football365.com\/news\/deeney-names-england-star-who-will-cost-them-the-world-cup-in-harry-maguire-clash\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">like Troy Deeney<\/a><\/strong>, Petit believes Jordan Pickford could be a problem for England.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was not really impressed by Pickford,\u201d the Frenchman added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think he should have done better on the first goal, definitely. He made some saves, but I don\u2019t know, I don\u2019t feel it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you want to go until the end, you need to have one of the strongest goalkeepers in the competition. And that\u2019s my opinion. You may disagree with me, but I\u2019m not really confident with him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe first game, in terms of emotion, it\u2019s always very difficult to cope with that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut again, with the ball at his feet, especially on the line, sometimes when he goes for a free kick or corner, I always have the feeling that something could happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emmanuel Petit is \u2018very confident\u2019 in England at the World Cup after their 4-2 win over Croatia but&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1038448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5008],"tags":[748,15259,393,163,4884,17241,12,16,2970,15,1514],"class_list":["post-1038447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-england","tag-britain","tag-emmanuel-petit","tag-england","tag-front-page","tag-great-britain","tag-jordan-pickford","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-uncategorized","tag-united-kingdom","tag-world-cup"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116781499426350276","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1038447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1038448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1038447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1038447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1038447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}