Is England still in the World Cup? Yes, and the answer now turns on Wednesday afternoon, when Thomas Tuchel’s side face the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the last 32. England reached this point after beating Panama 2-0 last Saturday to top Group L, but a single knockout defeat would end the run immediately.
Tuchel and knockout pressure
Tuchel arrives with a record that explains why he was handed the England job after Gareth Southgate stepped down after the Euro 2024 final. He has a 74% win ratio in knockout football at club level, led Chelsea to Champions League glory in 2021, took Chelsea to three domestic cup finals, and won domestic cups with Borussia Dortmund and Paris Saint-Germain.
That history matters because England are no longer being judged on group-stage control. They are being judged on whether they can handle a first knockout tie without drifting into the kind of collapse that has marked previous tournament exits.
England and the Iceland warning
The warning sits in plain view. England won a knockout tie for the first time in 12 years by beating Colombia on penalties in the last 16 of the 2018 World Cup, but they also lost to Iceland at Euro 2016 after Kolbeinn Sigthórsson scored the winner. Three of Tuchel’s players — Harry Kane, Jordan Henderson and John Stones — were there against Iceland.
Tuchel has leaned on that memory when talking about setbacks. He said: "You will not find great athletes who didn’t suffer big defeats". He also said: "But you see, wow, a year of injuries, a heavy loss there, another big defeat, doubts, sleepless nights. Even if you have scars, it is just the way it is. We all had our losses. Ask me how I felt after our 1-0 against New Zealand. I still remember thinking: ‘Am I good enough, am I good enough? Did I get this right? OK, let’s keep on.’"
England’s next test in Atlanta
That is the useful lens for Wednesday. England topped Group L, but the reaction has not been a clean sweep of optimism, and the problems across the side have not vanished because the group stage ended with a 2-0 win. A team with title ambitions can move through the early rounds and still leave doubts behind if the knockout structure exposes them.
So the question is immediate and practical: can England solve enough of those issues in almost every part of the team before they meet the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Atlanta? If they do not, the tournament ends there. If they do, Tuchel gets the kind of knockout night his record suggests he was hired to manage.
