Reece James explains why he was given free kick chance ahead of Harry Kane | OneFootball

Reece James is a shy lad, but after such a special moment in yesterday’s game for England even he couldn’t avoid giving some words to the press.

“I’ve been waiting for that moment there for a long time. I made my debut many years ago. And thankfully managed to score today,” he said with a smile, breaking the too cool to celebrate attitude he had when it went in.

“[Scoring] means a lot more to me, the last 2 and a half, 3 years have been a struggle. I’ve had a lot of injuries and it’s been tough. But towards the back end of this season I’ve been playing consistently and I’m happy to be back playing for my club and my country on a regular basis,” he continued.

On the subject of his lack of celebration, he insisted there was no message behind it – he was just mobbed by happy teammates before he had a chance to go anywhere:

“I didn’t celebrate because by the time it hit the net and I had realised it had hit the net, everyone had surrounded me so I didn’t really have time to run anywhere.”

You can see James speaking in the clip embedded here:

How James got back on free kick duties in England return

Reece James fires one over the wall for England.

The interviewer then asked how James had managed to get to the front of a queue of very talented England players to actually be the one to have a dig. As it turned out, it was because many of his colleagues reckoned it was too far for them to shoot from:

“We all lined up, they thought it was a bit far [to shoot], I thought it was a good distance, so we had a little discussion, and they said for me to take and thankfully I scored!”

We can probably expect him to take a few more set pieces for his country now…