Well, somebody must have been listening.<\/p>\n
Only a few days ago I was wondering why England seemed determined to ignore Harry Kane.<\/p>\n
Last night they found him four times.<\/p>\n
He scored twice.<\/p>\n
With a kinder VAR decision, he might well have had a hat-trick, and one unfortunate save by the DR Congo goalkeeper ensured that at least one shot was stopped in a manner he’ll probably be feeling for a few days yet!<\/p>\n
Which got me thinking.<\/p>\n
Whatever happened to learning?<\/p>\n
One of the things I admire most in football isn’t getting everything right.<\/p>\n
It’s putting things right when you’ve got them wrong.<\/p>\n
Against Ghana, England had plenty of the ball but Harry Kane spent much of the evening looking like a man waiting for a bus that had been diverted.<\/p>\n
Against DR Congo, the plan was different.<\/p>\n
Get the ball into Kane.<\/p>\n
Amazing things happen when one of the world’s best finishers actually gets the chance to finish.<\/p>\n
Perhaps Thomas Tuchel had the same thought.<\/p>\n
Or perhaps he’s been secretly reading my diary.<\/p>\n
Mind you, if he has, I’d quite like a mention in the programme at the Azteca Stadium.<\/p>\n
England weren’t perfect, of course.<\/p>\n
Marcus Rashford occasionally looked as though he fancied winning the match on his own when a simple pass might have done.<\/p>\n
Noni Madueke was a little slow tracking back, and England found themselves behind after just seven minutes.<\/p>\n
There are always lessons to learn.<\/p>\n
The important thing is learning them.<\/p>\n
Belgium showed the same determination.<\/p>\n
Two goals down against Senegal with only minutes remaining, they somehow dragged themselves level before winning with a controversial penalty deep into extra time.<\/p>\n
The USA had their own test.<\/p>\n
Reduced to ten men for much of their match after Folarin Balogun’s rash red card, they still found a way to beat Bosnia and book their place in the next round.<\/p>\n
The best teams don’t avoid problems.<\/p>\n
They solve them.<\/p>\n
Life isn’t much different.<\/p>\n
We all make mistakes.<\/p>\n
We all get things wrong.<\/p>\n
The trick isn’t pretending we never did.<\/p>\n
It’s making sure we don’t keep making the same ones.<\/p>\n
Of course, I say that as someone who still insists on assembling flat-pack furniture without reading the instructions.<\/p>\n
Apparently I like learning the hard way.<\/p>\n
Every single time.<\/p>\n
England’s reward is a last-16 tie with Mexico in the Azteca Stadium.<\/p>\n
Now there’s a proper test.<\/p>\n
Mexico haven’t lost there for years, and if England really have learned the lessons of the group stage, this is where we’ll find out.<\/p>\n
Because learning isn’t proved by talking about it.<\/p>\n
It’s proved by what you do next.<\/p>\n
Anyway, what do I know?<\/p>\n
I’m just a grumpy old man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GOM World Cup Diary #22 \u2013 Whatever Happened To Learning? Well, somebody must have been listening. Only a few days ago I was wondering why England seemed determined to ignore Harry Kane. Last night they found him four times. He scored twice. With a kinder VAR decision, he might well have had a hat-trick, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,13,53,82,111],"tags":[167,168,125,79,143,80,169,129,127,103,102,106],"class_list":["post-1194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","category-grumpy-old-man","category-humour","category-soccer","category-world-cup-2026","tag-azteca-stadium","tag-belgium","tag-england","tag-grumpy-old-man","tag-harry-kane","tag-humour","tag-learning","tag-mexico","tag-thomas-tuchel","tag-usa","tag-world-cup-2026","tag-world-cup-diary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1194"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1197,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1194\/revisions\/1197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}