Kobbie Mainoo: The Next Unexpected England Hero?
Sixty years on, the story still sets the standard for unlikely English heroes.
In 1966, on home soil, England’s greatest footballing day belonged not to the genius everyone expected, but to the understudy. Geoff Hurst, starting the World Cup behind Jimmy Greaves in Sir Alf Ramsey’s plans, stepped in through the door that injury kicked open and walked straight into immortality. A hat-trick against West Germany at Wembley, a global title secured, and a legend sealed with that famous cry that it was “all over” as fans spilled from the stands.
Hurst’s tale still looms over every England campaign that follows. No side since has been able to match what that team achieved, no player has quite captured the same bolt-from-the-blue magic. Yet the template remains: tournaments are shaped by men who begin in the shadows.
That is the backdrop Owen sees when he looks at Kobbie Mainoo.
The former England striker, now a UK ambassador for Casino.org, believes the young midfielder has the tools – and the time – to become one of those unexpected World Cup stories. Speaking to GOAL, Owen made it clear he sympathises with Mainoo as England search for greater control in midfield, but he also sees opportunity in the chaos.
He pointed 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?”
Owen said, recalling how Greaves, the darling of his father’s generation, watched the final from the sidelines. Greaves was, as Owen put it, “insanely good”, the automatic pick whenever the best England XI is debated. Yet when fate intervened, Hurst played. And look what followed.
That, in Owen’s eyes, is the lesson for Mainoo. You do not switch off. You stay ready. Tournaments bend in strange directions; they elevate players nobody had circled in red when the squads were announced.
Owen is blunt about England’s route so far. He argues that had they fallen earlier, the inquest would have been brutal, because “nobody should be really in our league” at the stages they have already navigated. He bristles at the way some fixtures have been framed, insisting that opponents such as Mexico have been built up into something they are not.
He reaches for a comparison. Put England against Norway on a neutral pitch in Spain tomorrow, he says, and the expectation would be a comfortable win – “two or 3-0”. In his view, that is the level of superiority England should be asserting. These are the games they should be winning, every single one of them.
Now, though, comes a different kind of test.
Argentina, Owen says, is “a proper game”, the first genuine coin toss of the campaign, the first opponent capable of really stretching England and exposing any flaws that have been glossed over. This is where the tournament starts to feel real, where reputations are made or shredded.
And this is also where the script can flip.
If England are to go all the way, Owen is convinced the journey will be littered with unexpected plot twists and new heroes. Not just the usual names, not just the established stars whose faces fill the billboards. Players on the fringes, players still waiting for their moment, will be asked to step into the storm.
Mainoo, he suggests, could be one of them.
The teenager may not yet be central to the narrative, but the World Cup has a habit of dragging fresh characters to the front of the stage. Hurst did it six decades ago. Somewhere in this England squad, someone else is waiting for their own Wembley moment – even if the stadium, the opposition and the era look very different.
