England averted a humbling early exit in Atlanta on Wednesday, as captain Harry Kane struck twice in the final quarter of an hour to subdue a stubborn DR Congo 2-1 and book a round-of-16 meeting with co-hosts Mexico. The Congolese had taken a seventh-minute lead through Brian Cipenga, who punished slack defending to beat Jordan Pickford at his near post, and for long stretches the tournament’s 46th-ranked side appeared capable of one of the great World Cup upsets. Goalkeeper Lionel Mpasi produced a series of acrobatic saves to deny Jude Bellingham and Kane, while a Yoane Wissa effort rattled the woodwork before the interval. England’s aggressive pressing, head coach Thomas Tuchel later admitted, had left them “outnumbered in midfield” and vulnerable to rapid transitions.

Tuchel’s half-time instruction was to keep “knocking at the rock until it breaks”, and the pressure eventually told. Declan Rice floated a cross-field pass to Anthony Gordon, whose delivery was headed in by Kane at the far post in the 75th minute. Eleven minutes later, Mpasi parried a fierce Bellingham drive, but Kane seized the rebound, sidestepped a defender and rifled a low shot into the net. It was the first time England had recovered from a goal down to win a World Cup knockout tie since the 1966 final, a statistic that underscored both the fragility of the performance and the resilience Tuchel hailed as “a very, very good sign”.

Kane’s double took his all-time World Cup tally to 13 goals, drawing level with Just Fontaine and moving past Pelé, and his fifth of this tournament keeps him in pursuit of Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé in the Golden Boot race. “We talked about daring to be the hero,” Kane said afterwards. “It was my day.” Yet the victory papered over structural concerns: Rice was deployed at right-back in the closing stages, and Tuchel conceded that the altitude of Mexico City, where England have not played since Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” quarter-final in 1986, represents “a big disadvantage” that cannot be acclimatised to in four days.

Viewed from Mexico City, the fixture is freighted with historical resonance and local confidence. El Tri have won all four of their matches without conceding a goal, most recently a 2-0 defeat of Ecuador, and the Azteca will stage its final match of the 2026 tournament in front of more than 80,000 supporters. Mexican outlets note that the last official meeting between the sides at a World Cup was England’s 2-0 group-stage win in 1966, and the prospect of revenge on home soil dominates the build-up. British analysts, meanwhile, point to the psychological test awaiting a squad that has lost back-to-back European Championship finals and now faces a co-host acclimatised to the thin air and raucous atmosphere.

The winner will meet Brazil or Norway in the quarter-finals, a path that offers little respite. For England, the comeback in Atlanta has at least provided what Tuchel called “the ideal platform to genuinely believe”. The Azteca, silent for four decades in England’s story, now awaits the next chapter.