After all the talk about altitude and the Mexicans not losing on their own patch for about a hundred years, Tommy Tickles and his England team eventually got the job done, but I tell you what it was stressful.
When the game finally kicked off at 2am Monday morning, after delays because of the storms, England carried out their game plan for this match to the letter, however it wasn't without it's hiccups. With only about a minute on the clock Declan Rice was booked for a high boot, and from minute one the pressure was on the 3 lions. To be fair to Rice he showed fantastic maturity to be able to compete for the remainder of the game knowing that one mistake could see him potentially receiving another card, a subsequent sending off and a suspension. He like everyone of those men in white were immense during this game. Tommy Tickles had spoken about the first 20 minutes being so important and England worked their socks off to make sure they were still in the game as we reached the first hydration break. Just after the half an hour mark the 3 lions were rewarded for their efforts when their counter attacking, quick breaks yielded two Jude Bellingham goals in just over a minute. This quietened down the hostile Mexican crowd and the feeling was that if we could hold onto this 2 goal advantage going into the break then our chances of progression to the quarter finals would be much easier. Yeah, right this is England mate, that sort of stuff don't happen to us, and of course it didn't happen this time either, 3 minutes before half time Mexico pulled a goal back, this got the partisan crowd up and England had to work hard defensively to not concede an equaliser, thanks in part to Jordan Pickford who brilliantly tipped a Jimenez header over the bar and then some magical defending from Jude Bellingham who came out of nowhere to take the ball off Montes' foot when it looked for all the world he was going to tap it in from close range.
England began the brighter in the second period and nearly made it 3-1, O'Reilly's deflected shot cannoned against the post Then disaster for England, what looked like a great tackle from Quansah was eventually reviewed by VAR, and after some deliberation, the right back who had been very good up to this point was given a red card. After seeing the incident back it is probably a red but Quansah got a bit unlucky as his foot rolled off the ball and hit the Mexican player on the shin. England reduced to 10 and now would be up against it as the home supporters smelt blood, Tickles was forced to make a change Saka was sacrificed for Stones and Konsa was pushed across to right back, then only 4 minutes after Quansah was dismissed in the 58th minute, Anthony Gordon's pace was enough to knock the ball past the Mexican goalkeeper and force him to bring the Barcelona man down. Harry Kane stepped up and did Harry Kane things and England despite being a man light had gone 3-1 up, surely that was it, right, surely they had done enough to get over the line, nah mate, I keep telling you this is England, we don't do it like that. Our good friend VAR was involved once more after Harry Kane attempted to clear a ball and accidentally kicked a Mexican attackers foot in the area, decision penalty, again after looking at it, I have seen them given and I have seen them not given but as soon as the ref went to the screen there was no way he was going to repeat what he had earlier in the tournament in the game between France and Senegal and stand by his decision not to give it. Jimenez stepped up and the Mexicans were back in it. With 20 minutes remaining plus what turned out to be 11 minutes of injury time, Tommy Tickles decides to see out the remaining time going with a back 5 and putting everyone behind the ball. For nearly half an hour England headed, kicked and punched every single ball that came into there area, the time seemed to have slowed down, every time you looked at the clock there seemed to be an eternity remaining, at this point most people, including myself were questioning whether we had decided to defend too early as wave after wave of Mexican attack ensued. As England fans we have all seen this before, there is no way on earth we are going to hold out, surely right? Hold out we bloody well did and when that final whistle eventually blew the relief and outpour of emotion was plain to see. What a resilient, hardworking performance, every single player left everything on that pitch as the clock reached 112 minutes, absolute heroes every single one of them.
After the game the manager was full of praise for his brave players, but also pointed out that although this was a performance full of guile, combativeness and pure graft, he added that there was still much more quality to come from his Lions and that they would still improve. This game though will show one or two people that there is more to England than just Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham, granted they may have got the goals that got us through but that was a great team performance. Gareth Southgate has to take some credit for bringing the majority of these players together and making them a team, but what Tommy Tickles has done is added a belief to this group that makes them believe that they won't be beaten. Now if they can, as the manager says still improve, then with that never say die attitude and the quality we also possess, who's to say that we can't finally put that hoodoo of 1966 soundly to bed and go on and win this bloody thing, it won't be easy of course but I tell you what none of those teams left in the tournament , after watching that display are going to look forward to playing us.
Get in there, Come on England!!
