Raheem Sterling: How Manchester City forward became England's hero
Gary Lineker’s status as a World Cup Golden Boot winner affords him certain opportunities and he mentioned on Tuesday that Raheem Sterling was the first England player for 35 years to score his country’s opening three goals in a major tournament. The last, of course, was Lineker himself, all against Poland.
In Euro 2020, only Patrik Schick and Emil Forsberg had scored the first three goals for their respective sides. And yet Sterling arrived at Euro 2020 with two distinctly inauspicious records.
He had played 12 games at tournaments without finding the net. He had only scored one goal in his previous 16 matches for Manchester City.
From major tournament struggles to major player
Sterling's World Cup in 2018 consisted partly of sprinting. Sterling was paired with Harry Kane in attack. In reality, as the captain dropped deeper, he was often the frontrunner, looking to stretch defences for others.
He mustered 11 shots, the same number as Harry Maguire; only one was on target, putting him two behind Maguire and level with Fabian Delph, Eric Dier and Ruben Loftus-Cheek. His 2014 World Cup had brought four shots, his Euro 2016 two, both off target.
There has been a transformation since then. Sterling had two goals in his first 45 caps. He has 15 in the last 20. With 17 goals, he has drawn level with David Beckham, who won 50 caps more. Of the 27 players ahead of him, only eight did not spend the majority of their England career as a striker.
The difference between 2018 and 2021 is considerable. Sterling got 9 percent of his shots on target then; now that is up to 71 percent, even though the average distance (14.5 yards to 15.6) is barely closer.
Sterling has had half of England’s shots on target in Euro 2020; in the World Cup, he had 4.5 percent.
Guardiola-inspired transformation
In part, Sterling's improved returns reflects the difference Pep Guardiola has made.
The 2018 World Cup came after his first prolific season at club level, when a haul of 23 goals in all competitions represented the first time he had topped 11. In the previous three seasons in the Premier League, under 30 percent of his shots on target brought a goal; in the four subsequent ones, it has been at least 36 percent and twice over 50 percent.
That is the form he has begun to bring to the international stage.
In Euro 2020 qualifying, he scored from 57 percent of his shots on target. In Euro 2020, it is 60 percent. Then he added seven assists and his return of 2.36 non-penalty goals and assists per 90 minutes represented the best. He has become a better finisher – he has three goals from an xG of 1.4 now compared to none from an xG of 1.2 in the World Cup.
Guardiola got him into goalscoring positions more. Sterling’s statistics peaked at 3.26 shots per 90 minutes and 1.22 on target in 2019-20. It has enabled him to be the winger who has doubled up as a striker.
His clinical touch has been particularly useful because of England’s shortage of shots. Mason Mount averages two shots per game; 36 players from other countries average more. And yet, excluding penalties, only three players – Alvaro Morata, Schick and Joakim Maehle – have had more shots on target than Sterling. Only 13 better his average of 1.34 shots on target per 90 minutes.
It is all the more significant because it has come in what is statistically an uncreative team. No England player figures in the top 90 for shot-creating actions and while that is partly because men such as Bukayo Saka, Jack Grealish and Mason Mount have not played all the tournament, the Aston Villa captain’s average of 3.08 shot-creating actions per 90, the best in Gareth Southgate’s squad, still puts him behind 51 other players.
That Kane, who had acted as Sterling’s supplier in qualifying, is only on 1.08 shows the extent to which he has lacked a regular creator. Sterling, at 1.61, has done more than any of the other forwards, apart from Grealish.
There is another significance to Sterling’s goals: they have come in open play. Three-quarters of their strikes in the World Cup came from set-pieces, largely Kane’s penalties, Kieran Trippier’s semi-final free kick or goals from free kick and corner routines. One of their three open-play goals was a fortunate deflection off Kane. Now Sterling has three goals in open-play on his own. No one in Euro 2020 has more.
It underlines that scoring in major tournaments in open play is hard; certainly it tends to be for English players. In all, Kane has four, one a fluke, Marcus Rashford none. Wayne Rooney scored two goals from open play in his last four tournaments.
Exclude penalties and Sterling’s tally, especially considering the opposition, is already the finest by an English scorer since Rooney’s four in 2004. Only one Englishman has ever got five non-penalty goals in a tournament: Lineker, with six, in 1986.