Wednesday 1st July 2026 5pm to 7:30pm
The knock-out “Round of 32” has England, as winner of Group L, play the best 3rd-placed team which, in this case, was D.R. Congo (table of rankings of all 12 off 3rd placed teams here on skysports.com).
Already the “Round of 32” has thrown some shocks with both Germany and the Netherlands eliminated, although it’s less of a shock for the Netherlands more like business-as-usual. Germany lost a penalty shoot-out against Paraguay (proving it can be done) and the Netherlands continued their 12 year streak of leaving the World Cup just like this – ie in the knock-out stages, losing a penalty shoot-out.
There is no history to draw on for England playing D.R. Congo – this is their first ever encounter. What’s available is form in this competition with England hopefully fielding the “v Croatia” team which attacked well, scored early and scored lots and D.R. Congo benching their “v Uzbekistan” team in favour of playing their “v Colombia” one as against Uzbekistan they won 3-1 and vs Colombia they lost 0-1.
The match is in the Atlanta Stadium which has a retractable roof so no one needs to worry about what the weather is doing (33C, 61% humidity in case you wanted to know).
The way the stadium’s roof retracts is very unusual – 8 panels shaped like petals rotate in from fully open to fully closed. Time-lapse video, 30 second, here on YouTube).
Come on England!