Kobbie Mainoo: The Next Unlikely Hero for England?

Sixty years on from Wembley, England are still chasing the echo of that one perfect summer.

Back then, the story belonged to Geoff Hurst. A striker who started the World Cup behind Jimmy Greaves, the darling of English football, and ended it with a hat-trick in a final against West Germany and a place in folklore. Greaves’ injury opened the door; Hurst barged through it and never looked back.

It is that thin line between squad player and national hero that has Michael Owen thinking about Kobbie Mainoo.

Owen, speaking to GOAL in his role as UK ambassador for Casino.org, sees the young midfielder as the kind of wildcard a tournament can suddenly revolve around. England, he knows, have spent long stretches of this campaign searching for control in midfield. Mainoo, he believes, has the talent to supply it.

“I do a little bit,” Owen said when asked if he feels for Mainoo, given the calls for more authority in the middle of the pitch. “Because I think he's definitely got the ability to play a role in the World Cup. And who knows? Things change, you get unlikely heroes.”

His mind goes straight back to 1966.

“Our greatest moment ever in this country, winning the World Cup, who would have thought Geoff Hurst would have been playing? Jimmy Greaves was the best thing since sliced bread. My dad just raves about Jimmy Greaves. When anyone's talking about the best England XI and things like that, my dad's like, ‘Jimmy Greaves’ straight away. He was insanely good. Now, things happen, and all of a sudden, Geoff Hurst plays, and look what happens.”

That is the template. A squad player, a twist of fate, and a career – a nation – changed in a single month.

For Owen, Mainoo cannot afford to drift into the background, even if his minutes are limited. “There will be, or there could be, a surprise. And it could be Mainoo, you can't switch off,” he insisted.

He also makes no attempt to dress up England’s path so far. The bar, in his view, sits higher than the performances.

“Really, what we've done so far, if we had been knocked out, there would have been a huge inquest. I mean, nobody should be really in our league,” he said, unimpressed by the narrative around their opponents.

“We've built it up as if Mexico was the hardest game of all time, but come on. Norway, if we played Norway at a neutral ground, let's say we play Norway in Spain tomorrow, people would expect us to beat them two or 3-0. So when you look back, we should be beating every single team.”

Expectation, not relief, is his baseline. Which is why the next step feels different.

“This [Argentina] is now the first game, this is a proper game, this is one that is a toss of a coin, this is one that's going to challenge us. But everything so far has been what you would expect from England, surely.”

The comfort zone has gone. Now comes jeopardy, the kind of stage where legacies are written and reputations shredded. It is also where players like Hurst once emerged from the shadows.

“We will see,” Owen added, “but if we're going to win it, there are going to be so many twists and turns and so many heroes that we won't even be thinking at the moment. And Mainoo could be one of them.”

England have been here before: a talented squad, a defining knockout tie, a nation holding its breath. Somewhere on that teamsheet, perhaps not yet in the starting XI, might sit the next unlikely name to join the conversation that always begins with Hurst and Greaves.