‘It’s a dream come true’ – South London’s Eberechi Eze on scoring first senior England goal

BY ANDREW MCSTEEN

Eberechi Eze has said it was a “dream” to score his first senior England goal as Thomas Tuchel’s side defeated Latvia 3-0 at Wembley Stadium on Monday night in their 2026  World Cup qualification match.

After cutting into the Latvian box, the Crystal Palace attacker saw off three Latvian defenders before his shot deflected into the net to seal the win with 15 minutes remaining.

“It’s something I’ve dreamed of from young so it’s special for it to happen, grateful to God for the opportunity to even just be here and express the gift. I’m forever grateful,”  the 26-year-old, who came on as a substitute in the 61st minute, told UEFA.

“I always want to impact the game whenever I play, however long I get, and today it has come off. I’m happy to get a goal, to contribute. I tried to create space, tried to destabilise the defender and get my shot off and it worked.

“I was told to come and make an impact, and that’s what I tried to do – just to be directly effective and try to create something.

“Sometimes it’s not easy against teams like this, because there’s not a lot of space, but the team, worked well. We stuck to the plan and kept going. I felt it was a strong performance from us. We knew what we needed to do today and it was important to win. That was the main thing and we’ve done that well.”

The game was just the second one with German manager Thomas Tuchel in charge and came after a 2-0 win against Albania on Friday night, a game in which Eze was an unused substitute.

And having been with the new manager for a week, Eze revealed that the process of getting to know each other is well underway.

“We’re taking it game-by-game,” said the Greenwich-born player. “You can see that he’s implementing a different style of play which is definitely suiting us, it’s putting us in the right positions and giving players the chance to be really creative and effective.

“But, of course, It’s still early days. We’re still learning, trying to understand more of what he wants and how he wants us to go in the right direction.”

PICTURE: ALAMY