This is one of the classic situations in football. The underdogs are 1-0 up. The favourites are dominating the game; they might not get one goal, but if they do, a second will follow. Midway through the second half, the two options here seemed like a 1-0 DR Congo victory, or a 2-1 England victory. Thanks to the brilliance of Harry Kane, it was the latter. But how did DR Congo go 1-0 up in the first place?In his pre-match press conference at Atlanta Stadium last night, Thomas Tuchel was very clear about what he expected from the opposition.“They are very compact, a very physical and well drilled team — probably in 5-3-2, sometimes 5-diamond-1,” he said. “Off the ball they are disciplined, they change between a high press and a low block. They are very dangerous on counters, very direct in their approach. They’re not shy to play long balls into depth and make it a running game, and make it into second balls.”But DR Congo came out and played completely differently. Their 4-1-4-1 system was nothing like the formation they’d used in the group stage, and more similar to the system Ghana used which caused England serious problems in a goalless draw in the group stage. There was no sign of them playing long balls, they didn’t really threaten on the counter-attack, this wasn’t about second balls. DR Congo came to play.Their shape was partly inspired, it seems, by the way Ghana played — and England’s punishment for failing to break down Carlos Queiroz’s side is that other opponents will play that way too. “We wanted to shut down the centre better, to cut off the path to (Elliot) Anderson, who is very important to building the game,” said DR Congo manager Sebastien Desabre. “So we decided that our strikers had to focus on them, like Ghana did with Jordan Ayew.”This wasn’t just a defensive job from the African side, however. DR Congo played some excellent attacking football, with slick one-twos and their defence pushing up to act as the playmakers. Their opening goal showed that the element of surprise in their system had caused England serious problems.Right back Djed Spence pushed infield to track the run of Noah Sadiki, bursting forward from midfield — just as right-back Aaron Wan-Bissaka had done from the other side, creating multiple runners up against England’s defence.The confusion left Brian Cipenga, DR Congo’s left-winger, completely unmarked at the far post to fire home. England, of course, hadn’t expected DR Congo to play with wingers at all.“We didn’t get the press right — we were too aggressive with the press, especially on the left wing,” said Tuchel afterwards. “Sometimes they had four players on our last line so we couldn’t push through into the press. It was a bit difficult in the first 20 minutes for our centre-backs to read this.”But England responded to adversity well. By half-time they’d accumulated over 1.0xG, and it felt like a goal was on the cards. Goalkeeper Lionel Mpasi was DR Congo’s star performer. And while Tuchel’s precise selection decisions have been questioned this month, it’s clear England do, at least, have a plan and they’re largely going to stick to it.“There were no new messages,” said Tuchel of his team talk in the second hydration break. “The message was always the same: keep pounding the rock, keep knocking, don’t give in, do what we believe in.”In other words: England will always play with two wide players who stretch the play without possession but want to check inside, whether that is Marcus Rashford and Noni Madueke, or Anthony Gordon and Bukayo Saka. “The wingers was always clear,” said Tuchel. “We push with the wingers who start, then replace them — this is the plan, the players knew that — we’re all-in on the wings, then after 60 or 70 minutes we come with fresh legs.”The only major change of shape is tilting the midfield trio: here with Eberechi Eze coming on for Djed Spence and playing alongside Bellingham, leaving Elliot Anderson as the sole holding player.This also resulted in Declan Rice shifting to right-back, an unfamiliar position but one he played on occasion for Arsenal last season without looking uncomfortable. In truth, he’s a better crosser than England’s recognised right-back options. When he made an underlapping run and reached the byline to hang up a cross in the lead-up to England’s equaliser, he was in the same position as in the opening minute, when he popped up there from midfield.But there are various things England won’t do until an emergency situation. They won’t abandon a back four. They don’t use a player drifting in from wide. They won’t throw on a second striker before, say, the final 10 minutes, and even then you can argue that it wouldn’t be that different from Bellingham’s role considering how almost all his contributions come inside the opposition box.England may yet lurch into the ‘out of ideas’ stage we’ve seen before. But they won’t be shapeless. “We didn’t need to unlock something tactically, we didn’t need a new solution,” said Tuchel. They were clear in their mindset.”His counterpart Desabre was also pleased with his own tactical approach. Why did he think DR Congo eventually lost? “It took,” he said, “The best striker in the world.”Jul 1, 2026Connections: Sports EditionSpot the pattern. Connect the termsFind the hidden link between sports terms