Sterling, Barkley Score Twice As England Hit Six Past Bulgaria

England bounced back from their first tournament qualifying defeat for 10 years with a 6-0 thrashing of toothless Bulgaria on Monday in a Euro 2020 Group A clash marred by racist incidents in the first half that stopped the game.

The match at the Vasil Levski stadium was temporarily halted by the referee in the first half under a three-step Uefa protocol to tackle racist abuse from the crowd.

Racist chanting was heard from the stands and reported by England players to manager Gareth Southgate, with the referee informed and a public announcement made on two occasions.

"The officials were onto everything very quickly," said Southgate. "We reported everything very quickly when we heard things.

"I explained to the players that if anything else did happen in the second half we would be coming off. We all saw the second half was calmer and that allowed our players to do their talking with the football."

Ross Barkley and Raheem Sterling both scored twice after Marcus Rashford opened the scoring and captain Harry Kane finished off the rout, Bulgaria's heaviest home defeat, as the visitors recovered from a 2-1 loss to Czech Republic on Friday.

England, who moved closer to a place at Euro 2020, are top with 15 points from six games, three ahead of the Czech Republic and four in front of Kosovo who beat Montenegro 2-0.