In terms of home-field advantage on the international stage, it doesn’t get much greater than Mexico at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. Not only is the support world class, the stadium’s sitting at over 7000 feet above sea level — more than twice as high as the highest point in all of England — and Mexico had only ever lost two (2) competitive games there, out of 89 played.
But last night, England pulled off a minor miracle: a rather improbable victory in a game dominated by the opposition. Mexico
had impressed in their four games getting to this point; England had not. Mexico had not even conceded a goal. England were expected to struggle with the altitude and the weather (the match was delayed an hour due to thunderstorms), even before trying to deal with a team urged on by not just the 80,000 in the stands, but the 130 million across the nation.
And sure enough, after a slightly tame opening, Mexico quickly got on top, and would stay there for the rest of the game. But football’s a funny old game, and not only did England score once against the run of play — a nice counter down the right with Harry Kane crossing to the far post for an unmarked Jude Bellingham to score with a diving header — but would score twice in two minutes against the run of play — forcing a turnover straight from kickoff for Bellingham to scramble in an almost immediate second.
Mexico dominated, but were suddenly losing 2-0.
As it turned out, the drama was just starting.
Mexico got back up, dused themselves off, and redoubled their efforts. And it didn’t take long for them to reap their reward: Julián Quiñones finding a loose ball following a set piece scramble to fire into the roof of the net to halve their deficit just before half.
All the momentum was with Mexico, but the break gave England a chance to regroup. And Nico O’Reilly’s deflected shot not long after the restart almost staked them to a 3-1 lead. Alas, the shot his the post and bounced away. And then things went from unlucky to much worse for the Three Lions, as Jarrell Quansah got his marching orders after VAR reviewed a strong tackle where his leg rolled over the top of the ball and landed squarely in a Mexico player’s calf.
And yet, after all that, it were England who scored next: Anthony Gordon getting a flick-on from Harry Kane just before the Mexico goalkeeper, who took out Gordon in the process and conceded the penalty. Kane made no mistake.
Unfortunately for the England captain, he would give away a penalty of his own not much later, after kicking through an oppositing player’s foot as he was trying to clear the ball. A bit unlucky, but very much a penalty. Raúl Jiménez made no mistake, making it 3-2 with over twenty minutes still to go. England were sitting ducks, surely.
But Thomas Tuchel’s Three Lions are made of stronger stuff than that. They defender heroically against an increasingly desperate Mexico, and would eventually see off nearly a dozen minutes added-on as well to reach the quarterfinal for the third tournament running. Mexico, like most observers, figured they would get at least one to get the game to extra-time, but England had other ideas (especially Jordan Pickford making some excellent saves in goal).
Norway and Erling Haaland (who beat Brazil, 2-1 in the early game) await England in the next round. Hopefully they get Reece James back by then — he missed out with a hamstring problem again, but will be needed even more so than usual with Quansh suspended.
