Eberechi Eze admits he was delighted after scoring his first senior goal for England in their 3-0 victory over Latvia at Wembley on Monday night.
The Crystal Palace winger made a big impact after coming on as a substitute in the 61st minute. 15 minutes later, Eze cut into the Latvian penalty box, evaded three defenders, and saw his shot deflect into the net, giving England all three points in their World Cup qualifier.
Speaking following his big moment, he said: “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.
“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.”
Eberechi Eze celebrates his first England goal 🦁 pic.twitter.com/8p2W1Qp9xB
— B/R Football (@brfootball) March 24, 2025
The Latvia match was just the second under new manager Thomas Tuchel, following a 2-0 win over Albania on Friday, where Eze was an unused substitute.
With a week of training under Tuchel, the winger shared his thoughts on his ongoing adaptation to the manager’s style of play compared to Gareth Southgate.
“We’re taking it game-by-game,” Eze added. “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.”
