Raheem Sterling’s pinpoint pass unravels Ukraine to spark England’s landmark Euro 2020 win
England’s thrashing of Ukraine began with a killer ball that deserves to be watched on loop and marvelled at for generations to come
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Your support makes all the difference.The quarter-final at Stadio Olimpico on Saturday night was still in its infancy when parental guidance warnings were needed for hardcore pass porn.
The clock read 3:24 when Harry Maguire strode up in possession, spraying the ball to Raheem Sterling in a harmless position on the left byline.
There was no danger for Ukraine, even when the Manchester City attacker was shaping up to take on Oleksandr Karavaev.
England didn’t sense any impeding wonder either, until suddenly, Sterling changed direction and tempo.
He darted inside and at the unfortunate Mykola Shaparenko, who tried to dash the 26-year-old off the ball. Sterling was too strong, too sharp and too clear about what he wanted to do.
He shrugged off the Dynamo Kyiv midfielder, sparking movement from Harry Kane in hopeful anticipation that a ball could somehow be threaded through a wall of Ukraine bodies.
There were seven defenders in-between Sterling and England’s captain, and yet, they were all rapidly rendered ornaments.
Once the City ace had muddled Shaparenko after dribbling down the left and sliding inside, he was in complete control of the situation – and ultimately – the flow of the game.
Sterling applied the perfect reverse pass, which dumbfounded Karavaev, Serhiy Sydorchuk, Illia Zabarnyi and Mykola Matvyenko.
He had done all the hard work for Kane, wiping out seven markers for the striker to simply slot past the exposed Georgiy Bushchan.
It was a masterclass in delivering a killer pass and symbolised England’s earliest goal in a European Championship match since Michael Owen’s effort against Portugal in 2004.
The supreme ball also represented Sterling’s sixth assist for Kane, which is the most one player has successfully supplied another for a Three Lions goal in all competitions in the 21st century.
The pass of the tournament had constructed the platform for one of the performances of the tournament.
Sterling’s trickery and ball is the kind to marvel at, to show as an example of offensive aggression and it could very well come to be remembered as one of the pieces of play that guided England to major silverware for the first time since 1966.
It certainly was crucial in securing a European Championship semi-final 25 years after the unforgettable class of 1996.
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