Has Croatia win sparked 'World Cup fever' in England?

It was certainly a fine way to start and after three points against Croatia, they can now set themselves up to control Group L.

Ollie Park-Palin watched the game and gives us his thoughts on what he saw from the Three Lions below…

ENGLAND beat a resilient Croatia team last night in a brilliant game for the neutrals. The end result was a 4-2 win, but it wasn't as straightforward as it looked.

England started off the game strong when a clumsy miskick from Croatia's captain Luka Modric on England and Arsenal winger Noni Madueke saw him concede.

Harry Kane stepped up and initially, he missed but because of an infringement from Croatian goalkeeper Dominic Livakovic, the penalty had to be retaken and Kane scored at the second attempt.

Croatian midfielder Martin Baturina scored a belter of an equaliser into the top corner, but Kane scored a lovely header from a Declan Rice corner to restore England’s lead.

Petar Musa levelled the score on the stroke of half time, but it took Jude Bellingham just over a minute after the break to put England ahead again and after that ,it was a dominant performance with Marcus Rashford finishing it off.

Overall, it was a very good start and gives the nation hope for the rest of the tournament.

However, there were a couple of concerns to take away, one of them being that the defence didn't look anywhere the level it needs to be.

I personally think that John Stones starting was a mistake by Thomas Tuchel seeing that his season for Manchester City was stop-start, whether he was injured or just not deemed fit to play.

I think his City teammate Marc Guehi should start next time out to give us a bit of balance in that back line.

Now going onto the positives – and there are a lot of them…

England opened up their tournament six days after it started, so expectations and hype had increased and everyone was ready.

And England certainly delivered in my opinion with a brilliant and entertaining performance for all to see.

Tuchel promised us high-energy, Premier League-style football and I can say he definitely didn't lie to us – I really liked how, in the early stages of the second half especially, we absolutely dominated a good Croatia side.

Another promising thing is that Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham and Declan Rice all looked properly on form.

And a word for the England support last night, which was excellent.

Obviously, the fans always turn up for every tournament England play in but in Dallas, they gave the team an extra push when they needed it.

The next game is against Ghana on Tuesday and there are a couple of changes I would make.

As well as bringing Guehi in for Stones, I also would take out Anthony Gordon on the left wing in favour of Rashford.

For me, Gordon didn't really show anything about himself but when Rashford came on, he scored a goal, nearly set another up for Bukayo Saka and was just something fresh and different on that flank.

A big scare for England, though, is that Rice had to be subbed off at the second half water break and was limping around the bench when he was brought off – hopefully it's just because he was tired.

Another thing for them to think about is that their next game in Boston and that stadium is an open stadium rather than an enclosed one, so the temperatures might come more into play.

But heading into this game, the whole nation can have confidence and belief after England sent out a message to say they are in it to win it.