England opens World Cup qualifying by beating San Marino 5-0

<p>LONDON &mdash; England began its path to the 2022 World Cup with the easiest of wins against the planet’s lowest-ranked national team in an empty stadium.</p>
<p>England won 5-0 over a San Marino team that struggled to get the ball in the England penalty area, raising fresh questions about Europe’s minnows being a part of the main qualifying groups.</p>
<p>Actual challenges will come later for England manager Gareth Southgate in Group I, as evident in Budapest where Poland twice came from behind to draw 3-3 against Hungary with Robert Lewandowski completing the comeback.</p>
<p>Southgate was able to give his captain the night off as Harry Kane stayed on the bench throughout, filling the role of England fan at an empty Wembley.</p>
<p>That created the platform for Ollie Watkins to score on his debut to complete a rout that began with James Ward-Prowse netting his first England goal on his fifth appearance. Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s double marked the forward’s first competitive goals for his country and Raheem Sterling took his Three Lions tally to 14.</p>
<p>San Marino, ranked 210th, didn’t give Nick Pope a single save to make in the England goal. But there were a string of impressive stops by goalkeeper Elia Benedettini, who plays in the third tier in Italy — the country surrounding the city-state.</p>
<p>San Marino has now conceded 42 goals in seven losses to England but it did manage to find the net once against the Three Lions in 1993.</p>
<p>Still, former England striker Gary Lineker noted during Thursday’s game that it was “absurd” San Marino and other small teams don’t need to go through a pre-qualifying campaign to earn the right to play bigger nations like fourth-ranked England.</p>
<p>England also has a group game against Andorra, the tiny nation ranked 138th by FIFA which lost 1-0 to Albania on Thursday. First, though, England heads to Tirana for its next game on Sunday as part of this triple-header before welcoming Poland to Wembley next Wednesday.</p>
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