England’s narrow win over Norway in the World Cup quarter-final was the most-watched match of the tournament so far in the UK – with an average of 12.7m viewers tuning in to the crucial match last night.
According to overnight Barb figures, the peak audience for the match on ITV1 was 16.8m, eclipsing the 15m peak for the Three Lions’s opening group game against Croatia last month.
However, that total was still a fair bit lower than previous England quarter-finals at the tournament. In 2022, a peak of 21.3m watched the side lose to France, while four years earlier the figure for the win against Sweden stood at 20m.
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England’s previous match at this edition of the event – the hard-fought win against co-hosts Mexico – had been watched by a peak of 9m people, with that lower total a result of the incredibly late kick-off time for UK audiences.
That match actually set a record for the biggest TV audience ever for a live UK broadcast between 2am and 4am, with pubs having been granted a special license to remain open to show the match.
After scoring twice in that game, Real Madrid star Jude Bellingham was once again the hero for Thomas Tuchel’s side against Norway, with another brace propelling the team to victory.
Norway had initially taken the lead through a first-half goal by Andreas Schjelderup and had a golden chance to double the advantage when Alexander Sorloth passed up the opportunity to play superstar striker Erling Haaland through on goal.
They would come to rue that chance when Bellingham struck on the cusp of half-time, and after both sides missed chances in an evenly-matched second half, he nabbed the winning goal right at the start of extra-time.
England held on for the next 30 minutes leading to wild celebrations at the final whistle, and now face a semi-final with Argentina in Atlanta on Wednesday as they look to secure a first World Cup final appearance since 1966.
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