England's brotherhood bond is driving World Cup dream | OneFootball

The Azteca has been conquered, now it’s time to take on the Vikings in huge quarter-final clash

Has Harry Kane got his voice back yet? Have England got their breath back yet? Have you?

The England squad fly on Thursday from their base here in Kansas City to Miami, alive and kicking at the quarter-final stage of this World Cup — preparing for Norway, the job at hand, but living for the weekend. Last weekend.

In the Missouri heat, England have their gaze cast forward, to Saturday’s shot at a place in the last four. Yet it can hardly have been easy to reset and refocus after that wild night in Mexico City.

Ten-man England put on some show at Estadio Azteca, breathing new life into their bid to end 60 years of hurt by producing their finest victory since 1966. Then came the squad’s Oasis and Beatles singalong with the tiny pockets of England fans stood behind the goal where Kane had scored his penalty in a win forgettable to no one, not even those fans who headed to bed in the early hours not completely sure this hadn’t all just been one beautiful dream.

Kane lost his voice. His squealed words in an elated interview croaked like they belonged to a 13-year-old boy — and fair enough, for it was a game that fizzed and popped and enchanted, like the matches from childhood that shape a football fan. Invariably, when you go back and check, things were never as dramatic as you remembered them. Give it a few years and try the same with Mexico 2-3 England; the game that had everything won’t disappoint.

The Azteca throbbed with noise. England, not shaken, were stirred, condemning the team ranked tenth in the world to only their third defeat in 89 competitive games in their sanctuary and overcoming more obstacles than any previous fixture among the national team’s 1,086 had posed. Away from home against in-form co-hosts who were acclimatised to 7,350ft altitude and disrupted by a sleepless night, an hour’s weather delay, a right-back crisis and a poor refereeing display, England emptied the tank, emerging with proof of the ‘brotherhood’ Thomas Tuchel is desperate to instil.

They will be firm favourites against Norway on Saturday yet their opponents’ ousting of Brazil serves as a warning. A World Cup of 48 teams has ejected 40. Still a long way to go, but every team is hazardous.

Norway’s most potent threat is, of course, their so-far unstoppable force. Erling Haaland is their all-time top scorer aged 25, has seven goals in four games at his first World Cup, has scored 62 goals in 54 caps and netted in every competitive international since October 2024. There is more to Norway than just him, but Haaland is inevitable, just as Kane for England.

And that will be a delicious subplot: the two best strikers in the world going head-to-head, unalike in style but both representing teams totally unabashed about playing chiefly to their No9's strengths.

Thomas Tuchel

Getty

Tuchel’s key takeaway

England looked at their best in the second half against Croatia and in the Mexico game. No coincidence it came against sides who went at them and left gaps rather than sitting in and seeking to frustrate. Ståle Solbakken’s side were brave against Brazil and dominated possession. Doing the same in Miami could play into England’s hands.

The ‘Vikings’ of Norway have another nickname: ‘great warriors of the cold’. Saturday in Miami could reach 33C degrees, though, and England are well-prepared. Their summer began with a 12-day warm-weather training camp in Florida, where they also won two friendlies. Norway do not share such muscle memory, this their first-ever major tournament quarter-final.

Gruelling rearguard action to keep Mexico at bay for 33 long minutes was heroic, Herculean, yet England’s relentless head coach demands more. They are “still overprotecting ourselves in defending”, Tuchel says. But his key takeaway was the same as the rest of the country’s: “The biggest lesson is that this team has heart.”

The task is to keep it beating, to deem that night in Mexico City no false dawn.

With Jude Bellingham operating at the level he is, there is always hope. The 23-year-old’s tireless display against Mexico was one of the great World Cup performances. He scored twice in 98 seconds, made a goal-saving tackle, drove the ball courageously up the pitch, became the focal point when Kane went off, ran himself spent.

Bellingham felt that in the same scenario they’d have “crumbled in years gone by”. But this England are different, as is he.

The Real Madrid star is taking the tournament by storm. Only Haaland, Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi have had a more impactful World Cup. And ‘impact’ is the word. Seven of Bellingham’s ten England goals have come in major tournaments. Of the other three, two came in the 87th minute or later, the other in a win over Scotland. He is the England player truly unlike an England player.

England celebrate with their fans at the Azteca

PA

Chemistry is a potent drug

As bewitching as Bellingham’s performances is the forging, finally, of a connection with Kane. It is laughable now that Bellingham’s place in this team was questioned pre-tournament, but he clearly clocked on to why. He and Kane arrived here as exceptional individual players with no chemistry; now their bond is a potent drug that has England fans high on World Cup fever.

The pair have scored ten goals at this World Cup from just 5.71 xG, while the rest of the team have a single goal from 4.24 xG. Is the double-act self-sustaining, or is this overreliance a problem? Decide amongst yourselves. England might decide for you in the coming days.

Tuchel said he had been feeling there was “something big coming”. What if Mexico was only one part of it? What if Tuchel and John Stones’s Azteca dressing-room jig was just the warm-up act? Back in the land of ‘bigger is better’, what if England still have both left to come?

Awarded the 1920 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun knew a thing or two about winning silverware. “What really matters,” he insisted, “is not what you believe, but the faith and conviction with which you believe it.” Faith duly restored, and with reason to believe, England must ramp it up further.