Day: July 14, 2026

English soccer fans have reason to believe that the world’s most coveted sports trophy — the FIFA World Cup Trophy — could finally be coming home after 60 years of dreaming.

The Three Lions defeated Norway 2-1 in extra time in the FIFA World Cup quarterfinal on July 11, advancing to the semifinals, where they will face Argentina on July 15 at 3 p.m. in Atlanta.

Despite being the birthplace of modern soccer, England has won the championship only once: in 1966, when it defeated West Germany 4-2 at Wembley Stadium. It was also the only time England reached a World Cup final.

Saturday’s victory marked the third time England has reached the World Cup semifinals, following appearances in 1990 and 2018. The team now hopes to reach its second final and capture its first major international trophy in 60 years.

England fans cheered on “their boys” at a packed watch party at The Monro in Park Slope. The British pub is a favorite among football fans — “just don’t call it soccer” — and is also the official supporter pub for Liverpool F.C.

The match kicked off at 5 p.m. at Miami Stadium and got off to a slow start before Norway’s Andreas Schjelderup opened the scoring in the 36th minute. England’s No. 10, Real Madrid midfielder Jude Bellingham, scored the equalizer in first-half stoppage time. Moments later, a goal by Harry Kane was ruled offside, ending England’s hopes of heading into halftime with the lead.

In the second half, Norway appeared to regain the advantage in the 55th minute when Torbjørn Heggem scored from a corner kick. However, the goal was overturned after a VAR review determined that Norway’s Erling Haaland had pushed England’s Elliot Anderson as the ball was played into the box.

The match went into extra time, where the 23-year-old Bellingham scored his second goal of the game in the 93rd minute — his sixth goal of the tournament — securing England’s place in the semifinals and ending Norway’s remarkable World Cup run.

Among the fans celebrating at The Monro were Kate Askew and Harry Norrish, who showed their England pride wrapped in the St. George flag. They told Brooklyn Paper during the break between regulation and extra time that the current England squad was the best team the country had seen in years.

“I think it’s a real pleasure to see the new team that we’ve got with our new manager finally playing the attacking football that we’ve wanted to play for years. We’re moving forward. We keep the ball moving. This is the best the team has looked in a long time,” Norrish, who moved from Leicester, England, to Brooklyn at the beginning of the year, said.

Askew, a Londoner visiting Norrish, predicted England would make it all the way to the final.

“We’re doing good. The final will be England vs. France, and at that point, anything can happen,” Askew predicted, noting that the players finally focused on representing England. “In terms of the golden era of English football, the reason why we never made it in the 2000s was that too many players put club before country.”

Gloria Mattera said England has experienced decades of near misses and heartbreak and was looking forward to a potential semifinal matchup against Argentina. Argentina defeated Switzerland 3-1 later that evening to advance.

“I don’t think Argentina was doing so great in their last few games. They kind of squeaked through, but I think it’ll be a great thing to see Messi and Kane and what that competition is going to be like,” Matter said.

The semifinal matchup will feature two of soccer’s biggest stars: England captain Harry Kane and Argentina captain Lionel Messi. The teams last met in an international friendly in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2005, when England won 3-2. Their most famous World Cup meeting came in 1986, when Argentina defeated England 2-1 in a quarterfinal match highlighted by Diego Maradona’s iconic “Hand of God” goal.

Nicole Fusco-Evans, who owns The Monro with her husband, Vincent — the pub is named after Vincent’s favorite hometown watering hole in Liverpool, England — was not only “ecstatic” about the win but also about the camaraderie and celebration among fans at the pub, where supporters sang “Three Lions,” the unofficial anthem of England’s football team.

“It really brings the community together. It brings our neighborhood together. It’s great. It’s a vibe,” Fusco-Evans declared.

England’s semifinal against Argentina will take place July 15 at 3 p.m. at Atlanta Stadium. The winner will advance to the final on Sunday, July 19, at New York/New Jersey Stadium, where it will face either Spain or France. Spain and France meet in the other semifinal on July 14 at 3 p.m.

On July 9, 1776, shortly after troops listened to the reading of the newly adopted Declaration of Independence at the Barracks in lower Manhattan, Oliver Brown, a 23-year-old captain-lieutenant from Massachusetts, mobilized a group of 40 sailors and soldiers to tear down a symbol of British rule and tyranny: the statue of King George III, erected at Bowling Green in 1770.

The group cut up the 4,000-pound lead equestrian monument, which was gilded in gold, severed the king’s head and paraded it through the streets on a pike. The lead was later melted down and made into more than 42,000 musket balls, which reportedly were used during the Battle of Brooklyn on Aug. 27, 1776.

On July 12, Brooklynites re-enacted the historic event at the Old Stone House in Park Slope by tearing down an exact papier-mâché replica of the statue, covered in gold origami paper, after a reading of the Declaration of Independence. To the delight of young visitors, the head was filled with candy.

Before the symbolic act of rebellion, visitors were invited to write the tyrannies they wanted to see abolished on the statue. Messages included ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), book banning, facial recognition, billionaires, attacks on Planned Parenthood and Super PACs.

Dylan Yeats, the Old Stone House’s scholar-in-residence and director of Lefferts Historic House, told Brooklyn Paper that the annual event, titled “Tear Down the King” and now in its fifth year, was inspired by the removal of Confederate statues during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and the removal of the Christopher Columbus statue outside the American Museum of Natural History.

“It’s very much a part of how American democracy is supposed to go; it’s you take down the monuments to the tyrannies that are no longer operative,” Yeats said. “Sometimes it can feel like we have no agency or ability to fight back. And I think naming something that you don’t like and then destroying it can be very healing and can give us the strength to keep going.”

He noted that the act of defiance 250 years ago inspired the French Revolution in 1789.

“The idea of people tearing down a statue of someone that they were supposed to worship like a god became really a big viral news story that helped a lot of independence movements; it gave them the strength to keep going,” Yeats explained.

Tonya Hopkins, a culinary historian and the resident food and public history adviser at the Old Stone House, was among four people who read the Declaration of Independence. She told Brooklyn Paper that when the Founding Fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence, they did so for white, wealthy men, intentionally excluding enslaved people, Indigenous people and women.

“The thing that touched me in that moment, as I was reading those words that literally were not intended for me as a woman, as a black woman, as a black person first, and as a woman. [I] literally wanted to ad lib and add a “W O” before each time I said men, because that’s what they meant, and they didn’t even mean all men. They meant men like them, white property-owning men, and that’s heartbreaking,” Hopkins said.

She noted that James Hemings, who was enslaved by Thomas Jefferson, was the first classically trained chef in America.

When Jefferson served as minister to France in Paris, Hemings accompanied him. During that time, Hemings trained as a French chef while simultaneously learning French.

Hopkins, who educates audiences about the forgotten and overlooked history and contributions of Black culinary professionals and food innovators, said Hemings introduced dishes such as macaroni and cheese, French fries, crème brûlée, whipped cream and vanilla ice cream to America after returning from France.

Hemings spent five years in Paris, where he also witnessed the storming of the Bastille, Hopkins noted.

“On July 14th, 1789, he’s shopping at the market, and the Bastille is being stormed. So here’s an enslaved person who witnessed both of the two most important revolutions in the Western Hemisphere. He’s a central character, but he himself doesn’t have his own freedom,” Hopkins said.

Kim Maier, executive director of the Old Stone House, said the event was more relevant than ever given the country’s current divisive political climate.

“Our history today is not that far from our founding history. Many of the grievances are the same, and many of the issues that people have with the current national leadership ring true,” Maier said.

Lori Cochran attended the event with her 7-year-old twins, Emma and Patrick. Cochran reflected on the symbolism of the event, which celebrated America’s 250th anniversary, as well as the current political climate.

“It would be something we would do anyway for the 250th to remember that time,” Cochran said. “For me personally, it is sort of unfortunate where we are as a country with this celebration because it does seem like many of the exact offenses that we alleged at that time seem to be recurring. So, that’s been a bit disappointing; not only are we not living up to our promise, we definitely seem to be going contrary to it.”

Emma wrote on the statue that she wanted independence from artificial intelligence, or AI, and from landfills because plastic particles end up in the ocean, affecting fish and the humans who consume them.

She and her brother were looking forward to tearing down the statue, partly because they thought it might be filled with candy and partly because they didn’t like kings.

“One of the adults said it’s maybe full of candy, and then I asked one of the adults that work here, and they said maybe, and I know adults are like trying to hide the secret. So I think there is,” Emma proclaimed.