England secured first place in Group L at the FIFA World Cup 2026 after second-half goals from Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane gave them a 2-0 victory over Panama at New York New Jersey Stadium on Saturday.
The win was England’s second of the tournament, coming after a frustrating stalemate against Ghana in their previous group outing. Coach Thomas Tuchel made five changes to the starting line-up, handing first starts in North America to Morgan Rogers, Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka in attack.
Panama proved stubborn opponents in the first half, frustrating England despite Marcus Rashford producing their most dangerous moments, cutting inside to force a full-stretch save from goalkeeper Orlando Mosquera and later heading over from Elliot Anderson’s cross. Panama also threatened, with Jose Luis Rodriguez testing Jordan Pickford with a strong shot that the England goalkeeper turned behind at the near post. 
The deadlock broke on 62 minutes when Bellingham held off his marker and prodded home on the volley from Saka’s corner to score his second goal of the tournament. Five minutes later, Bellingham crossed for Kane to head in England’s second, giving the captain his 11th World Cup goal, one more than the previous record held by Gary Lineker.
Panama had a late Jose Fajardo strike ruled out for offside and finished the group without a point or a goal, despite reaching double figures in goal attempts across their matches.
Tuchel said after the match: “We did what we needed. It was as we expected against a difficult opponent. We were the only team to create this amount of chances against Panama. Everyone did what we needed to do and Jude was a big part of that. There’s more to build on and you have to get so many details right with the aggressive approach we take. But the tournament starts again now with the knockouts. We collect our strengths and our energy and we build on what we have. We will step up. The bigger the games, the better we’ll get.”
Bellingham, named player of the match, said: “The first job achieved. We came here to do it in sections and now we’ve achieved that first objective to get through the group and to top it as well. We knew what level we wanted to achieve and we did it second half. Every game we’ve got to improve and it’s up to us to achieve that. The assist was a good combination of play and the record is everything Harry Kane deserves.”
Jordan Pickford also reached a personal milestone, with his 15th World Cup appearance moving him into outright second place on England’s all-time World Cup appearance list, ahead of Bobby Moore, Bobby Charlton, Terry Butcher and Ashley Cole, with only Peter Shilton on 17 ahead of him.
England now face a Round of 32 tie in Atlanta on Wednesday, 1 July, against a third-placed team from Group E, H, I, J or K.
Elsewhere in Group L, Croatia finished second after beating Ghana 2-1. Petar Sucic gave Croatia the lead with a long-range strike in the 31st minute before Derrick Luckassen equalised for Ghana. Nikola Vlasic headed the winner for Croatia late on. Ghana finished third, while the result meant Scotland were eliminated, unable to qualify as one of the top eight third-placed sides.
