England build their Wonderwall in a game for the ages

This article is part of the Rory Smith on Football newsletter – a guide to help understand what is happening on the pitch, off the pitch, and why all of it matters.

Throughout the tournament, Rory will be travelling across America, delivering daily commentary on the biggest World Cup ever direct to subscribers. His colleague George Simms will report alongside him. Never miss a newsletter, subscribe now here.

All week it has crept through Mexico City’s patchwork streets like a playful breeze, been daubed on walls and windows, proclaimed by billboards and street-sellers and, by old and young. It echoed round the Azteca in wave after ceaseless wave, both hymn and battle-cry, a nation’s slogan. “Y si, si?”. Literally, “What if, yes?”, but really, “What if it’s this time?”; “What if your wildest fantasies can bleed into reality?”. 

And what was this delirious, delicious night if not fantasies bleeding into reality? It happened gradually, then suddenly; first seeming as though it would never start, then as though it would never finish. A silver haze poured from a sky that betrayed neither day nor night, the lines between heaven and earth blurred as though even the gods deemed this a spectacle they couldn’t miss. The anarchic mass of sound and colour was so overwhelming and primal that this resembled more revolution than sporting event. The stadium shook as though dancing along to the rapture, as though the earth might give way at any moment. How were you supposed to do anything in these conditions: play football, write, think, breathe? How do you exist in the eye of hell, keep standing when everything is intent on crushing you like a tin can? The pre-match hype man pleaded to “make this the loudest place on earth,” and the Azteca sound-o-meter registered 149 decibels, enough to make your ears bleed, to never hear quite the same again. But then this was a match that will never allow you to forget it, a match that burrowed into your mind and soul never to escape, a match that will permanently alter English football’s self-perception and identity. 

England have never won a game like this before, their greatest victory since beating Netherlands 4-1 at Euro ‘96, not because it was uniquely excellent but because they don’t win these games: Portugal, Germany, Croatia and France in the past two decades alone. The script is valiant defeat, burning in the heat, seeing death and glory and picking death every time. Or, it was. Now the script is Jude Bellingham, is Harry Kane, is Jordan Pickford punching everything that dare enter his vicinity.

Bellingham is unique in the English footballing tradition, growing to fill the occasion and space before him. And this was the greatest exhibition of Total Bellingham yet: everything, everywhere, all at once, the boy born to carry the world. His first goal was all timing and deft precision, disappearing and reappearing at will. His second, 98 seconds later, was forging a moment by sheer force of extraordinary skill. In the pre-half-time hysteria his flying kick inexplicably denied Mexico an equaliser just as their resurgence felt inevitable. After 93 minutes he still possessed the vision and ability to launch a shot towards the top corner from 40 yards, even if Raúl Rangel collected it comfortably. 

For all the justified focus on Kylian Mbappé, Michael Olise and Ousmane Dembélé, Kane, Bellingham and Bukayo Saka are every part their equals, just as destructive and golden and beautiful. Saka has assisted a goal every 64 minutes at the World Cup, including Bellingham’s opener, despite sometimes looking as though his boots are on the wrong feet. Kane and Bellingham are learning game by game how to exist in each other’s orbits, to fleetingly become something bigger than the sum of their leviathan parts. In the chaos Anthony Gordon finally found his place as an international player, relentlessly excellent, winning the penalty which ultimately decided a match that defied definition. That penalty was scored by Harry Kane and then rapidly followed by Kane conceding one of his own.

Somewhere in here was why you hire Thomas Tuchel, hire the systems and processes and details guy, the guy who teaches you how to trust yourself even when you forget who you are. The defining theme of England’s World Cup has been Tuchel saying we’re doing this his way, that this dream lives and dies by him, grinning at the doubt. Not that this went to plan, that it was ever really possible to plan for a night of such all-consuming chaos. 

Tuchel said England needed to “worship the possession,” and then they finished with 33.2% of the ball, their lowest such figure in a World Cup match. Mexico finished with more shots, more shots on target and more players. We should be both tough on Jarell Quansah and tough on the causes of Jarell Quansah, the wild-eyed tackle of a man drowning in the occasion, but also of a 21-year-old centre-back inexplicably deployed at right-back in the biggest game of his life, who had been flawless to that point.

And so on 75 minutes Tuchel decided that England were winning in 90 minutes or not at all, decided to break Burn in case of emergency, park the Burn. Dan Burn’s inclusion in this squad has always really felt superfluous, a centre-back who didn’t remotely resemble his peers. And yet here emerged the moment to wheel out your 6’7” human ball magnet, six clearances and two blocked shots in just over 25 minutes, hurling himself at everything with flagrant disregard for anything but The Cause. After what felt like both a second and a lifetime, you saw the final whistle but didn’t hear it, dragged into the vacuum. Bellingham and Marc Guéhi could only collapse where they stood, relief and euphoria and exhaustion piercing the blinding adrenaline.

Two hours later the Azteca stood eerily empty, the ocean poured away and wood swept up. This place is haunted by new ghosts now, Bellingham leaping through the night, Kane wheeling away, England will eventually regain control of their minds and senses long enough to comprehend that Norway and Erling Haaland lie ahead in Miami on Saturday. These players have told us what they are, what they are capable of. The path to salvation is becoming clearer, inching closer, a justified hope. Y si, si? What if, yes?

Photograph by AP Photo/Antonio Felix