World Cup

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Attendance: 43,319

World Cup | Group Stage

Jun 24, 2018 at 1pm UK

England
6-1
Panama Panama

Stones (8', 40'), Kane (22' pen., 45+1' pen., 62'), Lingard (36')

FT(HT: 5-0)

Baloy (78')

Hernan Dario Gomez: 'England were beautiful against Panama'

By Giuseppe Labellarte, Reporter

Published: June 24 2018 | 16:37

Last updated: June 25 2018 | 12:16

Panama coach Hernan Darío Gomez deems England a "beautiful" team following their 6-1 defeat at the hands of the Three Lions in Sunday's World Cup Group G clash.

Panama coach Hernan Dario Gomez has described England as a "beautiful" team and admitted that his nation could have lost by a bigger margin than 6-1 in their World Cup meeting on Sunday.

The tournament debutants were put to the sword by the Three Lions in Nizhny Novgorod as Harry Kane scored a hat-trick, John Stones bagged a brace and Jesse Lingard completed the scoring.

Gomez admitted that he started "to feel scared" at the break, with England already five goals up, but also believes that Panama wasted "three or four opportunities" during the game.

"The result itself, I think the difference of goals could have been more," Gomez told BBC Sport. "We could have conceded more goals. We tried to play against England. We tried to avoid a bigger catastrophe and kept the ball in the second half.

"England are so practical. It's a beautiful team... I spoke to a colleague at half time and said 'I'm starting to feel scared'. We can't think about equalising, we have to think about stopping England scoring more goals.

"We wanted 0-0 in the first half but we were feeling rather frightened. Given that Panama is like a small young child in football, other teams don't really decipher our style of play - there were three or four opportunities we didn't take properly."

The defeat means that Panama will be going home after their final Group G game, against Tunisia on Thursday.