World Cup 2018: England overcome penalty voodoo; defeat Colombia 4-3 on shootouts

And Eric Dier scored as England sailed through, their past records behind, their horrors and fears broken. England had defeated Colombia 4-3 (1-1) on penalties, for the first time in any major international tournament and they were in the World Cup quarterfinals after 12 years of leaden history. It all transpired on a fine Tuesday night at the Spartak Stadium in Moscow.

The gravestone for the win however was laid by goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, who brilliantly saved Carlos Bacca’s penalty after Jordan Henderson had his effort kept out and Mateus Uribe had hit the post for Colombia.

It was left for Dier to score and the Tottenham Hotspur defender did so with perhaps the worst penalty of the night, but it didn’t matter any longer because England were playing Sweden on Saturday, in their easiest ever quarterfinal since facing Cameroon in Itlaia ’90.

But the importance of the win was not the historical way they crashed the penalty shootout voodoo of the past but in the manner they overcame the trauma that looked to have grounded them.

England were comfortably leading 1-0 after Harry Kane had put them forward from a penalty-kick in the 57th minute. Colombia hardly threatened the goal and despite the shirt-pulling, fiesty-elbows and pushing and pulling one could sense the ‘Three Lions‘ cruising to a victory, their first since the 1-0 victory over Ecuador 12 years ago.

The boys in whites had slowly retreated back to their old method of time-wasting tactics, of waiting for the opposition to attack, hoping for the clock to tick-in at double pace. But Colombia’s response was not attacks but more fouls and they would still consider themselves lucky not to have given way a second penalty when Davinson Sanchez tripped Jesse Lingard in the 77th minute.

The referee waved play-on, a utterly wrong decision and it was no surprise because he had been on the wrong side for most past of the night and apart from rightly awarding England a penalty in the 54th minute, his decisions was shoddy just like the football on display was.

Then Uribe suddenly pulled out a pile-driver that had Pickford somehow gathering himself to palm away the ball and with two minutes remaining, England would have thought they have averted the danger. But Yerry Mina struck from the resulting corner and the same fears were back again, the old horror story of history was up to be written again.

It was from Colombia’s first corner, the one England had prevented all night. Mina got up the highest and bounced the ball off the ground. Kieran Trippier was at-line to head the ball away but failed to judge its rising height and soon England two minutes away from a victory were left shell-shocked and asked to play 30 more minutes.

Also Read: World Cup 2018: Forsberg winner steers Sweden through to quarterfinals

The momentum had certainly shifted towards the ‘Yellow Wall‘ and it was them who played for most of those extra-time, England only somehow surviving till the whistle set-off and referee pointed to the spot.

Kane, Rashford, Trippier and Dier scored but Pickford was definitely the hero on the night, an English knight had finally stepped-up and England might have truly arrived.