How long can Kane keep saving England?

How long can Kane keep saving England?

July 2, 2026



England left it late but got the job done, thanks to Harry Kane.

Adam Leventhal is joined by The Athletic’s Carl Anka and Liam Twomey after England’s emotional come-from-behind win against DR Congo as our England correspondent Jack Pitt-Brooke poses the question; is Kane England’s greatest player ever?

Away from England’s win, the USA and Belgium also progressed to face one another in the Round of 16. Henry Bushnell reports from the USMNT’s win over Bosnia & Herzegovina including a controversial red card for Folarin Balogun, while Belgium had to come from 2-0 down to see off Senegal.

And ahead of the Day 22 action, Matt Slater joins us from Toronto ahead of Portugal taking on Croatia to discuss how the cities he’s visited have connected with the tournament as well as what tournament preconceptions he had that he may have changed his opinion on.

00:00 Intro
00:41 England through to the Round of 32
02:24 Is Kane the greatest ever England player?
10:20 How bad were England last night?
13:30 Is Spence the fall guy for Tuchel?
17:17 England face Mexico at the Azteca
18:38 ‘Discussion of the day’ with Threads
21:05 USA win over Bosnia & Herzegovina
26:35 Belgium’s comeback win against Senegal
31:43 ‘Do you know’ daily trivia
33:12 Day 22 Preview
41:00 Outro

Host: Adam Leventhal
With: Carl Anka and Liam Twomey
Featuring: Jack Pitt-Brooke, Henry Bushnell and Matt Slater
Executive Producer: Guy Clarke
Producers: Mike Stavrou and Liam Warburton

The Athletic FC Podcast is your essential guide to football’s biggest stories, six times a week during the World Cup…

Listen on Apple and Spotify: theathletic.lnk.to/tafcpod

Subscribe to The Athletic FC Podcast channel 👉 http://bit.ly/athleticuk | 🔔Make sure to enable all push notifications!🔔

Follow The Athletic FC Podcast:
Instagram: @theathleticfc
TikTok: athleticfcpod

Thumbnail: Richard Pelham / Stringer / Getty Images Sport via Getty Images

#worldcup #england #football

Published:
View Comments (41)

  6. He didn’t though. The system Tuchel designed for England worked. It is specifically designed for Kane to do his thing after the left or right attacking triangles do theirs.

  7. Tuchel was also like that at Bayern. Would berate players from the sideline and would criticize them at press conferences. Lots of great players had big dips in form and looked low in confidence. Kompany came in and the entire club atmosphere changed and literally every player is better. The team just plays better too. As we see over and over, players actually liking the coach makes them want to fight and improve. Fear is only a motivation to not make mistakes.

  8. This might be the most cringe opening 10 mins of a podcast I’ve ever seen. That Kane talk was diabolical. First big moment he’s ever shown up for England and it’s against fkn Congo. These guys talking about him like he’s Messi or Ronaldo 🤣

  10. Tuchel suffering with the handcuffs of a limited squad chosen by…Tuchel. Good thing Burn and Chalobah are there. Who needs footballers to play any football especially after losing a number of right backs? Vibes vibes vibes can win a World Cup.

  11. First world cup heartbreak is a good one, England not making the 1994 world cup! Conceding almost straight away to san Marino and then scoring 7 to win 7-1 when we needed to win by 7 clear goals. 8 year old me cried my eyes out at the end after mum and dad let me stay up to watch it 😂

  20. Hey, please do a US v. England episode! Two topics:
    * Who's more likely to win their Round of 16 game?
    * If they were to meet in the Final, who would win? (If healthy, and then if they are "as is"/as expected with fitness.)

  21. I wish there was, like, an orange card for incidents like what happened with Balo. Off for the rest of the game but no suspension. Because, yes, recklessness should be curbed but intent should factor in.

  22. Gascoigne easily the most gifted English player of all time. Kane is racking up the goals, he's a fantastic striker and a gentleman, but Gazza was really special. I was living in Italy when Gazza was playing there, and despite all his well-documented problems he was absolutely adored in the country and recognised as the special talent that he was. It's a tragedy that those problems ruined his career.

  27. As long as it takes

    All this crap about relying on someone. Many many teams have relied on someone for all of football. City relied on Haaland for goals. Norway do. Portugal relied on Ronaldo, Argentina rely on Messi. There's many other examples. Cut the crap

  29. Nice episode, all! I really appreciated your balanced and IMHO correct discussion around the penalty on Balogun. Especially the insight into the players’ reactions. And Carl's righteous anger about Senegal throwing away that win.

  32. I rewatched the England game the next day (not the pre- water break first half where I accept we were bad), stripped of the emotion of the immediate occasion, because I thought the reaction from many pundits was bordering hysteria. That includes the commentary on the BBC. And actually, England played quite well for most of the rest of the match. Incidently the second Kane goal is a goal he scores all the time. He's scored it in the Premier League, in the Bundesliga, in the Champions League and now the World Cup. And he scores it off both feet. It's world class because there is not a striker in world football that has that repeatable skill. But I still question the idea that it was just an individual goal. Anderson ran back to pick the ball up out of defence. He then surged through the midfield to slip Bellingham in. Don't take that for granted in the 85th minute. Bellingham did his surge into the penalty area to let off a shot. Don't take that for granted either. Gordon then picked up the ball and slipped it to Kane, who took advantage of a defence that had been disoriented by the preceding action. It was much more of a team goal than most people seem to imagine. I'm also willing to accept defensive vulnerability, if we continue to try to win games, rather than battening down the hatches to stumble in to a penalty shoot out. If we end up losing, then that's preferable to stinking out the tournament with sterile foitball.

  34. Y VIENES DESDE ALLÁ DONDE NO SALE EL SOL DONDE NO HAY CALOR DONDE LA SANGRE NUNCA SE SACRIFICÓ POR UN AMOR

    PERO AQUÍ NO ES ASÍ 🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽

  35. Spence is a decent player he’s a brilliant 1 vs 1 defending but as a full back myself if your asked to defend 2 your fucked as long as the attackers don’t mess up you can’t do anything

  36. Rubbish premise. Tuchel built a team, Kane is part of that tram. Tuchel bought on Gordon. He made the cross to Kane and Kane did what he’s trained for.

Leave a Reply