ATLANTA – For sixty-eight minutes, England could not find what they needed. Brian Cipenga’s seventh-minute finish had given DR Congo – in the first World Cup knockout match in their history – a lead that stretched, minute by minute, toward something historic and embarrassing. Jude Bellingham had been denied twice by Lionel Mpasi. The chances arrived. The goalkeeper made the saves. The scoreboard did not move.
Then Thomas Tuchel sent Anthony Gordon to warm up.
Gordon came on at halftime alongside Bukayo Saka, and the geometry of England’s attack changed immediately. Where the first half had been narrow and predictable, the two substitutes gave width that DR Congo’s disciplined low block had not been asked to contend with. It was Gordon who put in the cross in the 75th minute that Kane met with a firm header to equalize. It was Gordon who was involved again eleven minutes later when Kane created space at the edge of the area and hit a shot so cleanly that Mpasi, who had been the story of the match until that point, could not reach it.
“After that first hydration break, we upped the level,” Kane said. “Their keeper made some unbelievable saves. But keep going and the moments would come.”
The moments that came were Kane’s 12th and 13th World Cup goals – a tally Sky Sports reported as lifting the England captain above Pelé on the tournament’s all-time scoring chart. His header at 75 minutes was controlled and precise; his winner at 86 was the kind of hit a striker produces when all the doubt in the preceding seventy minutes compresses into a single clear decision. England won 2-1 and will face Mexico in the Round of 16 at the Azteca Stadium, kicking off at 1am BST on Monday.
Tuchel’s description of the first half was accurate and somewhat uncomfortable for a team that entered the knockout stage as one of the tournament’s favourites. “We kept believing,” he said. “We had the worst start possible. First shot, first goal. Then it became even more difficult.” He praised Kane without elaborating: “It’s what we expect from him. Top level.”
What the first half exposed was structural. Cipenga’s goal – he beat Jordan Pickford at his near post after defensive confusion left a lane that should not have existed – was not simply individual error. Ezri Konsa and Marc Guehi, positioned too closely together in the defensive block, displaced Djed Spence on the right side in a way that created exposure DR Congo were willing to exploit. Bellingham was denied twice by Mpasi, who made a string of outstanding saves to keep the scoreline at one when England’s chances multiplied in a disjointed first half.
England’s lineup was Pickford; Konsa, O’Reilly, Guehi; Spence, Rice, Anderson, Rashford, Madueke; Bellingham; Kane. Three changes from the group stage were made by Tuchel, with Quansah absent through injury. Assistant manager Anthony Barry’s halftime tactical adjustment – repositioning Declan Rice in central midfield – helped create the space Gordon and Saka then occupied. The architecture of the second half was unrecognizable from the first, which is either a credit to the halftime intervention or a measure of how badly the first half had gone.
The right-back situation is the persistent problem. Spence’s displacement in England’s defensive shape is not accidental – it is the predictable consequence of how Tuchel has set up around his other players. England face Mexico at the Azteca, a team that ended their 40-year World Cup knockout drought with a 2-0 win over Ecuador, built on vertical attacking runs and counterattacking transition. What left Spence exposed in Atlanta is exactly what Mexico’s forwards are constructed to find.
This was England’s first World Cup comeback win since 1966. The bracket had identified England’s half of the draw as the more navigable route, with Mexico and then either Uruguay or Belgium on the path to the semi-finals. Kane’s scoring record, at 13 World Cup goals and counting, makes that path credible. The defensive vulnerabilities Atlanta revealed make it conditional, ESPN reported.
Whether Tuchel finds the fix in the next four days is what Wednesday’s result did not answer. Kane is not the uncertainty in this England team. The eleven around him, in the moments before Gordon walked on, increasingly are.
