For twenty-two minutes on Wednesday night, England's World Cup looked like it might unravel in Atlanta.
DR Congo, playing in their first ever World Cup knockout match, went ahead through Brian Cipenga. England were sloppy, sloppy in possession, sloppy in shape, and rattled. Jude Bellingham picked up an early yellow card and looked one rash challenge away from a much bigger problem. This was supposed to be England's routine passage into the Round of 16. Instead, for the first half hour, it looked like the tournament's first great shock in the making.
Then, as it so often does at this World Cup, England found a way. And the way they found it will go down as one of the great modern England World Cup stories.
DR Congo had nothing to lose and everything to gain. This was the biggest match in the nation's football history, and they played like it. Cipenga's opener came from exactly the kind of directness and hunger you would expect from a debutant nation with the eyes of a continent on them.
England, by contrast, looked like a team feeling the occasion in the wrong way. Passes went astray. The tempo was all wrong. And Bellingham, so influential in the group stage, got wound up. A booking inside the opening exchanges left him one poor decision away from missing the next round entirely, and for a spell it looked like his frustration might boil over completely.
At the water break, twenty-two minutes in and a goal down, it was Reece James who took charge. Not Tuchel, not the captain, but a senior player pulling a teammate aside for a quiet word. Steady him. Get his foot on the ball. Keep going. It was the kind of moment that rarely makes the highlight reel but often decides football matches.
Whatever was said, it worked. England emerged from the break a different side. The wingers started attacking the full-backs directly, isolating DR Congo's wide defenders and forcing them into decisions they did not want to make. Bellingham and Rashford both had clear-cut chances before half-time. The nerves that had gripped England for the opening half hour were replaced by something closer to conviction.
It did not translate into a goal before the break, and there were long stretches of the second half where it looked like the equaliser would never come. Lionel Mpasi, DR Congo's goalkeeper, had Bellingham's number all night, pawing away a deflected effort with the kind of save that turns a goalkeeper into a folk hero. England were getting chances, plenty of them, but they were, as it was put at the time, trying to score against a brick wall.
The breakthrough finally came in the 75th minute. After a match of largely poor service into the England captain, Anthony Gordon, on for Madueke, chipped a ball into the six-yard box. Harry Kane got his head on it. 1-1.
Eleven minutes later, Kane did it again. A twisting strike found its way beyond Mpasi to complete the turnaround. 2-1. England's captain, England's talisman, England's record breaker, delivering when his team needed him most.
The second goal was Kane's 13th World Cup goal for England. He arrived at this tournament on 8, level with his tallies from 2018 and 2022. A brace against Croatia in the opener took him to 10, matching Gary Lineker's long-standing England record. A goal against Panama moved him past it to 11. Two more in Atlanta made it 13, taking him above Pele on the all-time World Cup scoring list. Five goals in four matches at this tournament, and he has built the entire monument in the space of three and a half weeks.
According to Opta, England's win was their first men's World Cup victory after falling behind since the 1966 final. Helmut Haller put West Germany ahead after twelve minutes at Wembley. Geoff Hurst equalised six minutes later. England went on to win 4-2 after extra time, and became world champions for the only time in their history.
Sixty years. That is how long England had gone without winning a World Cup match after conceding first. Sixty years, and it took DR Congo, playing in front of a raucous, disbelieving crowd in Atlanta, to end that particular hoodoo.
It is a stat that captures everything about English football's relationship with major tournaments: the long wait, the nerves, the sense that history is always watching. And on Wednesday night, for the first time in six decades, England looked history in the eye and did not blink.
None of this should take anything away from DR Congo. This was their first ever World Cup, their first ever knockout match, and they came within fifteen minutes of the biggest upset of the tournament. Cipenga's goal was a statement of intent, and for large parts of the match DR Congo pressed, harried and unsettled a supposedly superior England side. They will go home with their heads held high. Few debutant nations have given a bigger team a bigger fright.
The celebrations in Atlanta were tempered by one nagging concern. Declan Rice, England's midfield engine and arguably their most important player through the group stage, went off late in the match and did not look right for much of the second half. Whether that is fatigue, a knock, or something more serious remains to be seen. Given how much England's control of games runs through Rice, any fitness doubt ahead of the Mexico match is a significant one to monitor.
England now travel to Mexico City to face the co-hosts in the Round of 16 at Estadio Azteca on Sunday, a fixture that kicks off at 1am UK time on Monday morning. Mexico have been imperious throughout the group stage and Round of 32, extending their unbeaten run and defensive record at altitude with a comfortable win over Ecuador that ended a 40-year knockout drought of their own.
It will be a fierce, hostile, unforgettable atmosphere. England will need the version of themselves that turned up after that water break in Atlanta, not the version that started the DR Congo match. If Wednesday night proved anything, it is that this England side has the character to respond when things go wrong. They are going to need every bit of it in Mexico City.
Sixty years since England last came from behind to win a World Cup match. Let's see what they do with the momentum.
Our full reaction to the DR Congo comeback, Kane's record-breaking night, and everything ahead of Mexico. New episodes throughout the knockout rounds.
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