Kobbie Mainoo: Can He Be England's Next Unexpected Hero?
Sixty years on from England’s greatest day, the lesson from Wembley still echoes through every major tournament they enter: football has a habit of finding unlikely heroes.
Back in 1966, Geoff Hurst was not supposed to be the man of the hour. He was the understudy, waiting behind Jimmy Greaves, the superstar finisher of his generation. Greaves was the certainty, the name that rolled off every tongue when the best England XI was debated. Then injury struck, the door opened, and Hurst walked through it with a hat-trick in a World Cup final against West Germany at Wembley Stadium. One twist, one chance, and a career was transformed into legend.
That story sits at the heart of how some former England players are now looking at Kobbie Mainoo.
The young midfielder has watched this tournament knowing England have often lacked control in the middle of the pitch, knowing he has the tools to help, but also knowing that tournament football can be unforgiving to those on the fringes. Yet the Hurst example lingers: one break, one reshuffle, and everything changes.
Speaking to GOAL in his role as a UK ambassador for Casino.org, ex-England forward Michael Owen drew the line straight from 1966 to the present. He admitted he feels a twinge of sympathy for Mainoo, precisely because he believes the Manchester United youngster already has the quality to play a meaningful role at a World Cup. In Owen’s eyes, tournaments are built for sudden plot twists and unexpected protagonists.
He reached back to his father’s generation to underline the point. For them, Jimmy Greaves was the benchmark. The forward everyone talked about. The one his dad still champions instantly whenever the “best England XI” comes up. Greaves was “insanely good”, a phenomenon. Yet when fate intervened and Hurst stepped in, the script flipped. England’s greatest moment arrived on the boot of a man who had not been pencilled in to start the tournament as first choice.
That is the space Owen sees for someone like Mainoo. The message is blunt: you cannot switch off. Not in this team, not in this tournament. England, he argued, have already done what should be the bare minimum. Anything less than progressing this far, given the opposition they have faced, would have sparked a furious inquest.
He pointed to the way some fixtures have been framed. The buildup around certain opponents, he suggested, has been out of proportion. Take Mexico, painted as a major hurdle. Or Norway: on neutral ground, say in Spain tomorrow, the expectation from the English public would be a comfortable win, two or three goals to spare. On paper, England should be beating every side they have met so far.
That is why the next step feels different.
Argentina changes the tone. This is the first real heavyweight collision, the first night that feels like a coin toss rather than a formality. A proper game. A test that will stretch England in ways the earlier rounds simply have not. Up to now, Owen argued, the results and performances sit roughly where they should for a team of England’s stature.
From here, the tournament sharpens. The margins tighten. The narrative opens up.
In that chaos, roles can be rewritten. Injuries, suspensions, dips in form, tactical tweaks – all of it can thrust a squad player into the spotlight. Owen is convinced that, if England are to go all the way, the story will not belong solely to the established names. It will bend and twist, throwing up new faces and fresh heroes that nobody is talking about yet.
Kobbie Mainoo, waiting, watching, working, is exactly the kind of player who could step into that space. The precedent is there, etched into English football history at Wembley. The question now is whether this World Cup has room for another Geoff Hurst moment – and whether Mainoo is the one ready to seize it.
