Leeds predicts England’s first World Cup result - and it is bad news
The Three Lions might be in for a tricky night, according to YEP readers! 🦁🦁🦁
Queue up the song and dust off your face paint because England’s World Cup journey is about to begin.
The tournament kicked-off last week, but Harry Kane and co have had to hang around to enter the fray. But as the saying goes, good things come to those who wait and they are almost ready to take to the pitch in the United States.
Thomas Tuchel will reveal his line-up for the Three Lions opening game in Group L in a matter of hours. It is set to be a tricky test for England as they face Croatia in a rematch of the 2018 semi-final in Russia.
Luka Modric is still part of the Croatian squad. Having made the final eight years ago, they also chartered a path to the semi-finals in Qatar - losing to eventual winners Argentina.
England’s game against Croatia is set to kick-off at 9pm UK time and this week we looked back through the YEP archive for photos of fans watching games in Leeds. Take a look here.
Before the kick-off tonight (June 17), we asked our readers for their score predictions on our Facebook page and it was not full of optimistic responses. The most popular suggestion was 2-1, to Croatia.
If this score proved to be the correct, it would be the same scoreline as the 2018 World Cup semi-final. England famously took an early lead with a free-kick, before eventually losing in extra time.
Due to it being the group stages, the Three Lions don’t have to worry about playing an additional 30 minutes if the scores are level after 90.
However, some YEP readers were feeling more bullish. Richard Smith wrote: “Hope England win but could be close, Croatia no mugs.”
Michael Curran added: “I think both teams will settle for a draw, beat the other two and qualify.”
Echoing the draw prediction, Mark Coppin wrote: “1-1, we go ahead early in the second half with a lucky deflection, Croatia then play us off the park & equalise just as the 90 minutes is nearly up. We spend the 10 minutes of injury time panicking & kicking the ball into row Z!”
Roy Flavin was far more optimistic and backed England to win with the captain filling his boots with goals. He wrote: “5 nil to England Kane to score them all.”