From a machine gun to firing blanks: Queiroz's Black Stars tame Three Lions

England buzzed, attacked relentlessly, scored, and soared on the wings of Bellingham and Kane.

But that was a week ago, in the opener against Croatia - the Ghana match tonight was a stark contrast.

Faced with a brilliant tactical trap set by the Black Stars' boss Carlos Queiroz, England under Thomas Tuchel were a mere shadow of their former selves as the match in Massachusetts ended in a goalless draw.

Instead of picking up from where they left off in the previous match, the Three Lions seemed incapable of replicating that excellent performance. We saw a lacklustre display coming from one of the tournament's favourites, who were suffocated by Queiroz's gameplan. Unlike Croatia, Ghana showed no mercy in defence, leaving Kane, Bellingham, Gordon and others no space or chance to impose their philosophy. The lack of creativity in his starting XI forced Tuchel to make some changes in the second half, but the fact that their goalkeeper, Jordan Pickford, had more touches than Kane tells you all you need to know about the game's balance.

There was no flow on the England side, and there was quite a lot of patience from the Black Stars, whose low block resembled a solid wall for the vast majority of the game. Countless passes between Ezri Konsa and Marc Guehi didn't seem to bother Ghanaians too much, as the Africans kept forcing the rivals into mistakes.

Queiroz, the head coach of Ghana and the former Real Madrid boss who spent quite a few years working as Sir Alex Ferguson's assistant at Manchester United, did his homework perfectly. The 74-year-old veteran knew Ghana had already defeated Panama and that there was no need to take unnecessary risks. Just wait for the counters...

Alas, when the opportunity finally arrived, and that patience paid off, Prince Adu missed a sitter, hitting his teammate Semenyo instead of the back of the net for what could have been a shocking opener (and a potential winner).

And then, just as we were almost falling asleep, the English side finally struck - Bukayo Saka fired nicely from the edge of the box into the far corner, but the Ghanaian keeper had his say about it and made sure to keep his team afloat. However, that was only a prelude to back-to-back, close-range opportunities for O'Reilly and Kane. The former's effort was stopped by the keeper, while Kane's shot from a rebound went wide off the crossbar.

It stayed 0-0 on the scoreboard as the Black Stars have basically booked their place in the knockout stage, as even in the worst-case scenario they can't drop bellow a thrid place in the group, which should be enought for the Round of 32.

WORLD CUP - GROUP STAGE (ROUND 2)

Group L

Tuesday 23.06.

England - Ghana 0-0

Wednesday 24.06.

02.00: (6.50) Panama (3.80) Croatia (1.58)

***odds are subject to change***