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Mexico City, July 6. Two goals from Jude Bellingham and a penalty from captain Harry Kane helped England dismiss co-hosts Mexico in a thrilling round of 16 match with a 3-2 victory and secure a place in the quarter-finals of the FIFA World Cup 2026.

England will now compete with Norway

England, who reached the last eight for the third time in a row, will now face Norway on Saturday to enter the semi-finals, which stunned five-time former champions Brazil with a 2-1 win at the New Jersey Stadium and secured a ticket to the last eight for the first time.

Talking about former champion England, it has reached the quarterfinals of three consecutive World Cups for the second time. Earlier it had achieved this feat in 1962 (quarterfinals), 1966 (winner) and 1970 (quarterfinals). Interesting fact is that this was only the second FIFA World Cup match between Mexico and England. Earlier in 1966, England had won the group stage match 2–0 and later also won the trophy.

Mexico’s unbeaten record in World Cup matches at the Mexico City Stadium was also broken. This was England’s first match at the Mexico City stadium in 40 years, following a 2–1 defeat to Argentina in the 1986 World Cup quarter-final.

Mexico did not score a single goal in the first four matches

Also noteworthy is the fact that Mexico had not conceded a goal in its first four World Cup matches, but had no answer to Jude Bellingham, who scored two goals within 98 seconds of the first half. This defeat disappointed the Mexican fans. He was hoping his country would reach the quarter-finals for the first time since 1986, when it last hosted the World Cup. Since then, Mexico has been eliminated in the round of 16 eight times.

The thrilling encounter, which was delayed by an hour due to bad weather, was certainly one to remember as England won despite playing with 10 men for more than 40 minutes following a red card for Jarrel Quansah early in the second half.

Bellingham scored two goals in England’s victory

For England, Bellingham scored two goals and captain Harry Kane scored one goal, while for Mexico, Julian Quinones and Raul Jimenez scored. After this, Mexico applied pressure to score an equalizing goal, due to which the match could have gone to extra time, but England defended their fort strongly and won the match.

Norway’s Erling Holland scored two goals against Brazil

On the other hand, in New Jersey, Norway registered its biggest win in football history by defeating Brazil thanks to Erling Holland’s two brilliant goals. At the same time, Brazil’s consecutive streak of reaching the quarterfinals in the tournament was broken after eight times. This is the first time since 1990 that Brazil had to be eliminated before the quarter-finals. It was ousted by arch Latin American rival Argentina in 1990.

Erling Holland equals Mbappe and Messi

Talking about Erling Holland, he has scored seven goals so far in the current edition. He has now come on par with Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi, making the race for the ‘Adidas Golden Boot’ even more exciting. Haaland has scored in each of his last 14 competitive matches for Norway, scoring a total of 27 goals.

Neymar retired as soon as Brazil was out

As soon as Brazil was eliminated, its superstar 34-year-old Neymar announced his retirement from international football. After the match he said that this was his last match for the Brazilian national team. However, due to a persistent right calf injury, Neymar played in only two of Brazil’s five matches at the tournament. He also came on the field for 15 minutes against Scotland in the group stage.

Neymar scored 80 goals and gave 59 assists in 130 matches between 2010 and 2026. He finished his career as Brazil’s all-time leading goalscorer and the 11th-highest goalscorer in men’s international football in history.