Geoff Hurst's Legacy: The Potential of England's Kobbie Mainoo

Sixty years on from England’s greatest day, the lesson from Wembley still hangs over every major tournament they enter: football can turn an understudy into a legend in the space of an afternoon.

Back in 1966, Geoff Hurst was not supposed to own the World Cup final. Jimmy Greaves, the natural goalscorer, the man older generations still speak about with a kind of disbelief, began that tournament as England’s main striker. Hurst was the deputy, waiting, watching, hoping. Then came the twist. Greaves suffered an injury, the door opened, and Hurst walked through it with a hat-trick against West Germany at Wembley Stadium that rewrote English football history.

From reserve to immortal in 120 breathless minutes.

That story still shapes how former England players view the current squad. It’s why, when Kobbie Mainoo’s name comes up, there’s a flicker of recognition — the sense that the script is never fully written.

Michael Owen, a World Cup veteran and ex-Three Lions forward, sees that possibility. Speaking to GOAL in his role as UK ambassador for Casino.org, he drew a straight line from the past to the present, from Hurst to the teenager trying to force his way into Gareth Southgate’s plans.

He admits he feels for Mainoo, watching on while England wrestle for control in midfield. Owen is convinced the youngster has the quality to influence a World Cup. The door, he suggests, is never truly closed. “Things change, you get unlikely heroes,” he said, pointing back to 1966. Nobody expected Hurst to start that final. Everyone expected Greaves, “the best thing since sliced bread”, as Owen put it, echoing his father’s admiration for the Spurs icon. Then fate intervened, and history followed.

The message is clear: stay ready. Because tournaments have a habit of chewing up plans and spitting out new protagonists.

Owen also cut through the noise around England’s route so far. He believes the bare minimum has been met rather than anything extraordinary achieved. The way he sees it, if England had already gone out, the backlash would have been ferocious. With the talent at their disposal, “nobody should be really in our league,” he argued.

He bristled at the idea that previous opponents represented some towering obstacle. Mexico had been framed as a major test. Owen didn’t buy it. Look at Norway, he said. Put England and Norway on a neutral pitch in Spain tomorrow and the expectation would be a comfortable win — two or three goals in it. That, in his mind, is the level England should be operating at: not scraping by, but imposing themselves.

Argentina, though, changes the temperature. This, Owen stressed, is where the real tournament starts. A proper game. A coin toss. A contest that will finally stretch England, expose weaknesses, and demand answers.

Up to now, he feels, England have done roughly what you would expect from a side of their stature. No more, no less.

The knockout stages rarely follow a straight line. Owen knows that as well as anyone. He expects chaos from here: swings in momentum, late drama, new names etched into the national memory. Somewhere in that swirl, there is room for a surprise.

Mainoo’s challenge is to be ready if his moment arrives. History shows that World Cups don’t always belong to the favourites, or even the starters. Sometimes they belong to the player who begins in the shadows and ends up changing everything.