Harry Kane wants England’s fans and players to come together and share their belief in success at the 2018 World Cup.
The Three Lions captain scored a hat-trick in Sunday’s 6-1 thrashing of Panama, adding to his match-winning brace from last week’s opening victory over Tunisia to secure England's progress to the knock-out stages with a game to spare.
And after stating ahead of the competition that he believes anything is possible for Gareth Southgate’s squad this summer, he was quick to re-iterate his view again after qualifying for the last 16.
“It’s fantastic and I’m so proud of the boys,” said Kane after the game in Nizhny Novograd.
“We’re just enjoying it and enjoying being here. It’s a brilliant result and obviously it’s fantastic to be through and to do it in this way is brilliant.
“Both sets of fans here today were brilliant and that’s what the World Cup’s about, people coming together. We appreciate all the support we get out here and back home.
“You have to believe. To achieve anything in life, you have to believe.
“There’s still a long way to go and a lot of hard work to do, but we need to stick together and stick to the game plan and see where we go.”
The Tottenham Hotspur striker admits Sunday’s treble was one of the more fortunate of his career so far, with two first-half penalties supplemented by a ricochet off his heel from Ruben Loftus-Cheek’s shot in the second half.
“It’s one of my lucky ones, but I’ll take it,” he laughed, after edging ahead of Belgium’s Romelu Lukaku and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo as the World Cup’s current top goalscorer.
“We’re not getting ahead of ourselves, we just want to keep it going and we have a big game with Belgium on Thursday and we’re looking forward to it.
“We’ll go into the game looking to win, of course. It’ll be an attacking game as both teams are through so we’ll see what happens.
“We’ll rest and recover and get ready for next week.”
