Harry Kane Just Did Something No England Player Has Done in 36 Years

The guy just keeps making history. Harry Kane pulled England out of a bad spot against DR Congo with two goals in the final 15 minutes, turning a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 win that sent the Three Lions through to the next round. And in the process, he buried a 36-year-old drought.

England looked lifeless for most of the second half. Thomas Tuchel switched things up by moving Declan Rice to right-back, and it clicked almost immediately. Rice fed Kane in the 75th minute for the equalizer. That goal tied Kane with Pelé’s legendary mark of 12 World Cup goals. Then, in the 86th minute, the England captain ripped a shot that the keeper had no chance at — an absolute missile — to seal the win and push Kane past Pelé on the all-time World Cup scoring list.

Here’s the thing that got people talking after the game: Kane is now the first England player to score multiple goals in a World Cup knockout match since Gary Lineker did it in 1990. Sports analyst Jon Morosi pointed it out on X, and the stat stopped everyone cold. That’s 36 years. A full generation. Lineker’s performance against Cameroon in the quarterfinals was the last time an Englishman bagged a brace in the knockout stage. Kane ended that streak against DR Congo on a night when nothing was going right until he decided to change it.

The timing could not have been better. England was staring at an embarrassing exit. The team had looked flat, disconnected, desperate for a spark. Kane provided it, and then some. His first goal was a cool, clinical finish — the kind you expect from a guy who’s been doing this for a decade. The second was a demolition. Pure power. The kind of goal that makes a stadium shut up for a second before everyone loses their minds.

This is also the kind of performance that quiets the critics who say Kane goes missing in big moments. He didn’t just show up against DR Congo. He took over. He carried a squad that had nothing going offensively and willed them into the next round. Tuchel’s tactical gamble — moving Rice out of midfield and into defense — could have backfired. Instead, it unlocked the game’s decisive sequence.

England moves on now, and Kane moves into rarer air. He’s already one of the best goal-scorers in international soccer history. Passing Pelé, matching Lineker, doing it all under pressure on a night when his team needed him most — it’s the kind of thing that builds a legacy. The knockout rounds are where legends get made. Kane just made sure his name stays in the conversation.