England v Ghana: World Cup 2026 – live

Key events Spence and Guehi set to come into England XI We’re expecting two changes to the England team that beat Croatia last week. They come in defence, with Djed Spence set to play one of the full-back roles and Marc Guehi starting in central defence. It’s likely to be Spence over O’Reilly at left-back. Ever do that thing where you fix one problem and unwittingly create another? If so, there are three lions who know how you feel. To explain. For decades, England were notoriously poor starters at a major tournaments. Between 1986 and 2016, they won only two of their 14 opening matches at a World Cup or European Championships. Then Harry Kane scored a late winner against Tunisia in 2018 and it all started to change. Englnd have won their last five opening games, culminating in Wednesday’s happy-go-lucky 4-2 defeat of Croatia. But that has facilitated a different problem, one with which all Stone Roses and Elastica fans are familiar: the difficult second group game. At the last World Cup, under Boring Boring Gareth, England started with a 6-2 win over Iran. The next game was a bloodless, goalless draw with the United States. England cruised through the group regardless and eventually lost to France in the quarter-finals despite producing arguably their best performance under Southgate. A similar thing happened at the last two Euros, when victory in the first game was followed by deflation draws with Scotland and Denmark respectively. …