Harry Kane could not hide his delight after his brace helped England record a 2-1 win over Tunisia in their opening group match at the 2018 World Cup.
The Three Lions captain opened the scoring from close range on 11 minutes only for Gareth Southgate’s dominant side to be hauled back by Ferjani Sassi’s penalty towards the end of the first half.
But England regrouped and regained control of proceedings after the interval.
They created a number of decent chances – Jesse Lingard hit the post with one effort – but had to wait until the first minute of added time to clinch all three points, thanks to Kane’s stooping header.
He said: “I thought we played really well, especially in the first half.
“We deserved to be ahead and could have scored a few more.
“We kept going and that’s what these games are about. It’s a World Cup and you keep going until the last second.
“I’m absolutely buzzing.”
England enjoyed 59 per cent of possession at the Volgograd Arena and registered 17 shots at goal to Tunisia’s six.
They completed 180 more passes than their African opponents but it looked as though they would be forced to settle for a draw – until Kane’s late intervention.
And the skipper credits Southgate with giving him and his team-mates a greater resilience.
Kane explained: “We’ve done it for a while now. The gaffer has really instilled that into us.
“We have spoken a lot about togetherness and we’ve got a great bond off the pitch so it’s nice to see that working on the pitch.
“I’m really proud of the players. We’ve done a lot of work on the training field. We’ve seen a lot of games and we were just itching to play.
“The World Cup is tough, especially the first game. We got the nerves out of the way, the excitement and we then had to go and play and I thought we did really well.”
Watch England take on Panama at 1pm on Sunday 24 June, live on BBC One and BBC Online.
