By Karolos Grohmann
FOXBOROUGH, Massachusetts, June 23 (Reuters) - Ghana fully deserved their hard-earned goalless draw against World Cup contenders England in their Group L match on Tuesday, coach Carlos Queiroz said, as his team snatched a point that all but assures the Africans a spot in the knockout stage.
England had most of the possession -- as much as 80% for much of the first half -- but struggled to create any meaningful scoring chances until late in the game when Nico O'Reilly headed onto
the crossbar and captain Harry Kane fired over.
Queiroz's players worked hard to shut down spaces around the box and double-team England forwards when they did find an opening.
This was the first match in this World Cup where neither team managed to get a shot on target for the entire first half.
"I am so proud of the way our players fought during the game, how much they stand behind the plan, the game plan," said Queiroz, in his fifth World Cup appearance as a coach.
"When you have to defend, you defend. I cannot play samba when they play rock and roll. That's the name of the game, but the goal was exactly to finish the first half with the England team frustrated, with no solutions."
It was much of the same after the break with Kane getting England's first shot on target in the 59th and piling on late pressure, but they could not add another win following their 4-2 opening victory over Croatia.
"The first goal, it's achieved, we qualify for the second round," said Queiroz, whose team are on four points, as many as England, following their 1-0 opening win over Panama, but have not yet mathematically secured their spot in the knockout stage.
Croatia and Panama, both on zero points, face each other later on Tuesday. The top two teams of each group advance to the round of 32 along with the eight third-best teams.
"My players always believed that we had the chance to win against a great team. I will say, my humble opinion, England, they can be candidates to win the World Cup. But this is a result, an achievement," said Queiroz, who had two stints as Manchester United assistant manager in the 2000s.
"When they (England) went into halftime, they knew they don't have solutions to beat us and that was when we started to grow up and control the game. We could have scored. Unfortunately, we didn't do it, but I think also England could score. So a draw is a fair result."
(Additional reporting by Mohamed YossryEditing by Christian Radnedge)
