England 3 Slovenia 1
Wayne Rooney won his 100th England cap and scored a penalty to lead his team to a 3-1 win over Slovenia in a Euro 2016 Group E qualifier at Wembley on Saturday that only came to life after halftime.
The England skipper scored with a thunderous spot kick after 59 minutes having been fouled by Slovenia captain Bostjan Cesar as he moved level with Jimmy Greaves as his country’s joint-third highest scorer on 44 goals.
Rooney’s equaliser came two minutes after Slovenia took the lead when Milivoje Novakovic whipped in a free-kick and Jordan Henderson sent a header flying past Joe Hart for an own goal.
England secured the win with two goals from Danny Welbeck who put ahead after 66 minutes with a scrappy left-foot shot before making it 3-1 six minutes later after fine build-up play on the left culminated in a superb one-two with Raheem Sterling.
The victory maintained England’s perfect start to the campaign and they head the standings with 12 points from their opening four matches. Slovenia are second with six points from their four games.
Rooney took to the pitch with his children before kick-off and afterwards spoke of his ambition to win more caps for a side which he believes is developing a winning mentality.
“It’s a great honour to represent England 100 times now and hopefully many more to come,” he told ITV 1. “We’ve got a good winning mentality. I think you’ve seen that once we went 1-0 down. We knew it was going to be tough night, even tougher after they scored but the character we’ve shown was great.
“That winning mentality is with us. We believe we’re going to win every game.”
He added: “It was tough because they took the lead and we had to show our character and I think that will be good for us as a team. Since the World Cup we haven’t faced that. Going behind it was a great reaction from the players and we’re delighted with that.
“We could have done better before they went 1-0 up and I think after that, that really woke us up and we went and showed what a good team we are.”
Rooney was also full of praise for fellow striker Welbeck who is beginning to develop into a key man for manager Roy Hodgson.
“He doesn’t have to prove (anything) to anyone,” said Rooney. “He’s shown he’s a top forward and he’s getting better. The more games he plays he’s getting better.
“He’s scoring goals for England, for Arsenal and he deserves all the credit he gets because he’s a fantastic football player.”
