![\"DRC's](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/FI726JED5J2OGNXUZ5WC63FOFM.jpg\")
DRC’s Lionel Mpasi had a splendid game. Photograph: Getty Images <\/p>\nGordon Bennett! Say what you like about England \u2013 actually, don\u2019t, be nice \u2013 but they rarely present us with a dull moment at World Cups, the drama more often than not bordering on the tragicomic. <\/p>\n
And, aptly, come the end of their meeting with the Democratic Republic of Congo in Atlanta, the BBC\u2019s Guy Mowbray went all Shakespearean on us: \u201cCry \u2018God for Harry, England and St George!\u2019\u201d, Kane having proved himself able once more. <\/p>\n
George, you might recall, was decapitated in the end, which might well have been the fate of Thomas Tuchel and his lads if they had failed to win on Wednesday. And with just the 15 minutes to go, a defeat was looking highly possible, the Guillotine being sharpened back at Heathrow. <\/p>\n
And all this despite a positively chirpy start to proceedings from the BBC crew. Alan Shearer had a feeling in his bones that this would be a good day. \u201cIt feels different, there\u2019s an excitement, an expectancy,\u201d he said as England took to the field. Mowbray agreed wholeheartedly. \u201cThey\u2019ve been welcomed like The Beatles back in the day,\u201d he purred. <\/p>\n
And Mowbray\u2019s spirits soared further just five minutes into the game. \u201cIt might just be optimism deceiving the mind,\u201d he said, \u201cbut it just looks brighter from England!\u201d And with that DR Congo scored. <\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t quite on a par with that seminal Kevin Keegan moment at the 1998 World Cup when Michael Owen equalised late on against Romania (\u201cThere\u2019s only one team going to win this now \u2013 and that\u2019s England,\u201d he\u2019d said, and with that Dan Petrescu scored the winner for the Romanians), but it was close-ish.<\/p>\n
And the Democratic Republic of Congo, being a bit on the ambitious side, wasn\u2019t in the script at all. \u201cAt some point during the game, Congo will need to try and attack, they will need to try and score a goal unless they want to take it to penalties,\u201d Kaveh Solhekol had informed Sky Sports News viewers in the build-up to the game, intimating that England\u2019s superstars would face so low a block, a bristling-with-fear Democratic Republic of Congo might well position 11 men in their penalty box for the duration of the game.<\/p>\n
In fairness, Joe Hart, on punditry duty for the Beeb, along with Wayne Rooney and Micah Richards, had hinted that the England machine needed more oiling \u2013 \u201cI think the players have surprised Tuchel \u2013 and not in a good way\u201d. But Richards was confident that if they could actually pass the ball to each other, and occasionally in a forward direction, then \u201cI have no worries that they\u2019ll get the job done\u201d. <\/p>\n
DRC’s Lionel Mpasi had a splendid game. Photograph: Getty Images <\/p>\n
And then the Democratic Republic of Congo scored. \u201cYou can see the shock on the England players\u2019 and fans\u2019 faces,\u201d said Shearer, no one left more ashen-faced than himself and Mowbray. And when the lead was nigh on doubled, the woodwork proving more effective than Jordan Pickford, the pair of them were in need of sedation. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhy has every game we\u2019ve done together been enjoyable \u2013 and then we get England and it\u2019s borderline unbearable,\u201d asked Mowbray, who gave a rather understated summing up of that first half: \u201cIt\u2019s not going England\u2019s way.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lads in the studio didn\u2019t know where to start, Rooney and Richards agreeing that Pickford should have done a whole heap better for the Democratic Republic of Congo\u2019s goal. \u201cIt\u2019s not a mistake,\u201d argued Hart, \u201cit\u2019s just a difficult moment.\u201d (Yes, yes, he was a goalie).<\/p>\n
Second half. Mowbray\u2019s optimism had disappeared down the drain. \u201cIf England can\u2019t turn this around, does this eclipse Iceland in 2016 and the USA in 1950?\u201d Yeah,\u201d sighed Shearer, \u201cwithout a doubt\u201d. <\/p>\n
But cometh the 75th and 86th minutes, cometh the man. Harry, of course. \u201cWhen your country needs you, he has the answer!\u201d bellowed Shearer, most hearts left in smithereens for the Democratic Republic of Congo goalie Lionel Mpasi who\u2019d had a game for the ages.<\/p>\n
It was German coach Julian Nagelsmann who said the other day, even before that defeat by Paraguay, that \u201cif you win, everything is good \u2013 if you lose, everything is sh*t\u201d. This is true. Back in the BBC studio, Richards was talking like England had put on a masterclass, Rooney was hailing Tuchel for the bravery of his team selections, and all concerned were genuflecting in the direction of his hydration break chats with his players. If Kane hadn\u2019t done his thing, of course, they\u2019d have been likening Tommy to a turnip. <\/p>\n
\u201cA reminder of England\u2019s path to the final,\u201d said Mark Chapman with a straight face. \u201cMexico in the Azteca, get through that and it\u2019s Brazil or Norway in the quarter-finals, and then it would be Argentina, a lot of people would think, in the semi-finals.\u201d <\/p>\n
The pity is that he didn\u2019t tell us who England might meet in the final. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gordon Bennett! Say what you like about England \u2013 actually, don\u2019t, be nice \u2013 but they rarely present…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,34476,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,35350,67],"class_list":["post-564284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-fifa","tag-headlines","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-world-cup","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116847603021330056","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}