TAMPA, Fla. -- Whatever fresh lessons Thomas Tuchel was looking to learn in the first of England's warmup friendlies on Saturday, one longstanding immutable truth prevailed: Harry Kane is pivotal to his team's hopes of World Cup glory.
The 32-year-old provided the clinical moment of quality at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, expertly glancing in Djed Spence's left-wing cross in first-half stoppage time to secure a 1-0 win over New Zealand.
England should have scored more despite Tuchel sticking to his pre-match promise of changing the entire XI at halftime.
But the fact they scored at all is down to Kane, avoiding the embarrassment of failing to beat the 85th and worst-ranked team set to compete at the World Cup.
Haiti, the next worst team at 82, beat New Zealand 4-0 in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday. This is, then, a fairly inauspicious start but World Cups are not won at the beginning of June.
This was essentially a training game, an exercise in acclimatising to high heat, low blocks and substandard pitches.
The surface was only laid a few days ago, shortly after Post Malone played a gig here three weeks earlier. It didn't help. And while England haven't been fully exposed to the Floridian heat due to inclement weather since arriving on Monday, they got a full taste of it here with temperatures climbing to 34C during the game.
Marcus Rashford twice went close. Kobbie Mainoo curled a shot off target while Dan Burn hit the post in the second half. But in between, Kane made the breakthrough with the sort of agility and intelligence associated with a striker of his calibre.
This was a record-extending 79th England goal, coming at the end of a season where he scored 61 in 51 games as Bayern Munich won a domestic double.
Kane is a man for the moment and the history books. He is now tied 10th on the list of men's all-time international goalscorers with Neymar and Zambia's Godfrey Chitalu.
And in 2026, he is by far and away the most prolific striker in world football with 32 goals for club and country. Nobody else has more than 18.
Asked about his goal, Tuchel said: "That's what he does. He is always there to score. In the end, it is the decisive goal.
"Like always, no secrets there. If you score, it helps you, and give you a bit more rhythm, a bit more confidence. It is a bit easier for the second group to start with a 1-0. Harry is in top shape and I think anyway when the pressure comes and the tournament starts, that will bring the best out of our players."
There is plenty of room for improvement. What Tuchel described afterwards as a "mixed" lineup included Jarell Quansah at right back, Spence at left back and a midfield pairing of Jordan Henderson and Kobbie Mainoo.
In front of a better-than-expected crowd of 25,889, Ollie Watkins began off the right in a 4-2-3-1 shape featuring Morgan Rogers in the number 10 role instead of Bellingham.
England dominated possession but lacked the decisive touch in front of goal. That didn't matter today but it will at the tournament and the others have to use the intervening period to get up to speed to fulfil Tuchel's assertion they will deliver when it matters.
The halftime reshuffle saw Liverpool winger Rio Ngumoha become the fifth-youngest player to make his England debut aged just 17 years and 281 days. Although not selected in the final 26 for the World Cup, Ngumoha was one the brightest elements of a second half which saw Bellingham take the armband and England improve slightly.
"The first half we were out of positions and it was a bit too much freestyle," Tuchel said.
"That slowed our game down and made it difficult for counter-press because we were not in the positions we wanted to be when we started attacking. So that's basically the story of the match.
"To put it in context, a lot of our players played the last time together in November. So it is half a year ago.
"We have [just] four training sessions together and we mixed the team up completely so we never played before in these combinations to give everyone 45 minutes. And then you have the conditions, the pitch, it can look like this."
- England at the 2026 World Cup: Schedule, results, how to watch, news, analysis, injuries, more
- Will pubs stay open late for England games at 2026 World Cup?
- Meet England's 2026 World Cup squad: All 26 players picked by Thomas Tuchel and why
Perhaps of greatest significance was England avoiding any injury concerns on a surface that Tuchel was reluctant to criticise beforehand but more forthcoming over afterwards.
"It was very difficult to play on," he said. "I think it was not dangerous to have injuries. We have no injuries and there were no concerns but it was very uneven, very uneven. It was difficult to move the ball and move the ball quickly. When you have the ball for the majority of the match, it doesn't help you."
And so England return to Palm Beach Gardens before a final friendly against Costa Rica in Orlando on Wednesday.
Perhaps New Zealand coach Darren Bazeley summed it up best: "England were good but they need to be better than they were today, to win the World Cup."