Football Daily | England survive a Lionel M masterclass and roll on to the Azteca … just

5 hours ago 1

WESTBOUND AND UP

“For us now, it’s absolutely not a time to panic,” Anthony Barry urged in his now customary half-time debrief, with England 1-0 down to a Democratic Republic of Congo side playing with serious confidence. Thomas Tuchel’s No 2 coldly broke down what was required in the second half – “not a time to play gung-ho football” – but was done dirty by the stat that flashed up on the BBC’s coverage as he spoke. The last time England went on to win a World Cup match in which they conceded first? West Germany in the 1966 final. Yes, you may panic.

Dear England, were you ready to accept defeat, to scrape hard for excuses? This was a Lionel M exhibition, of course – even if it was Mpasi in goal rather than Messi up top. And you can forget about England’s right-back problem: how about that display from the Croydon-born Aaron Wan-Bissaka, even if he was playing for the opposition? Maybe it was time to pack up and accept that a home Euros in two years is the more realistic shout, bursting with that third-time-lucky narrative. The last decade has been a good run. We move.

Harry Kane wasn’t having it. With his late double he turned a potential re-run of Iceland 2016 into Slovakia 2024, and served up a reminder too: England are, believe it or not, quite good at this nowadays. This was their 10th knockout victory at a major tournament in the last eight years; the previous 40 years produced just six. They haven’t imploded in quite some time and Kane is a major reason with 11 knockout goals in five tournaments. “They’re all sharks,” proclaimed Tuchel when discussing Kane and fellow Ballon d’Or! Ballon d’Or! Ballon d’Or! contenders Messi, Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland. “If they smell blood, they come and score.”

That all sounds a little too intense for the kids, but Tuchel wants them to stay up in the UK and watch England take on Mexico in the early hours of Monday BST. “Let them watch,” tooted Tuchel. “There will be a big, big match in four days and we need the support of everyone and especially of the children,” he added, stopping just short of breaking into a rendition of Greatest Love of All. With the tournament co-hosts unbeaten in 10 World Cup games at altitude inside the gargantuan Azteca, England could do with help from all corners.

LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE

Last-32 week continues apace. Join Rob Smyth at 8pm BST/3pm EDT for Spain 3-0 Austria then our US counterparts will be on hand at midnight BST/7pm EDT for Portugal 1-0 Croatia (aet). To round things off, we’ll also bring you Switzerland 3-2 Algeria at 4am BST/11pm EDT.

RECOMMENDED FOLLOWING

If you’re not already doing so, check out Big Website’s Instachat account, now featuring Barney Ronay’s latest GWC diary, DR Congo and England fans taking in their last-32 meeting, plus a snazzy visualisation of Harry Kane’s winner.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I don’t know why they were arguing but I like that – we need that kind of grit on the pitch. When I took the team over 18 months ago, I thought they were very good when in control of the ball, but I thought they were not aggressive enough and that’s not how you get a result – you need to be solid, you need to battle to be there. We’re a better team if we keep this up” – Rudi Garcia is happy to see more set-tos between his Belgium players if it fires them up like it did in the wild 3-2 comeback win after extra time against Senegal.

As an ex-pat Sassenach now living in Edinburgh, capital of the Democratic Republic of Scongo, I can only express my frustration at Harry Kane for depriving the locals of what would inevitably have been an extra bank holiday today. Oh well, all attention now turns to the wee small hours of Monday, when Edinburgh becomes the capital of MexiSco” – John Collins.

That was a statement win. I think we deserve to get one of our exclamation points back. Can we please at least be USA USA USA! now?” – Pat Condreay [thoughts? – Football Daily Ed].

Fans celebrate after the United States scored a goal against Bosnia and Herzegovina at a fan zone in Washington DC

At the risk of turning this newsletter into the Chocolate Daily (Football Daily letters passim), as a French expat in Canada, I’d like to point out that chocolate is one of those foods with a pretty long shelf-life at room temperature, meaning that, in most civilised countries, it really is not that hard to purchase and enjoy very fine chocolate indeed. That said, if England and the USA USA USA really want to duke it out for the title of Worst Chocolate, maybe ask Fifa to organise an alternate GWC?” – Pierre Igot.

While I agree that American artisan chocolate is very good, I want to say that Hershey is the Fifa of chocolatiers. Don’t believe me? I’ll refer you to the upcoming biopic of its eponymous founder, which seems, at least judging by its trailer, to be the United Passions of confectionary films” – Kári Tulinius.

Marcelo Bielsa laments that no one cares what he knows. Has he not met Jonathan Wilson?” – Steve Mintz.

If you have any, please send letters to [email protected]. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day is … Steve Mintz. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, are here.