Colombia 1 England 1 (aet, England won 4-3 on penalties)
Finally, at 11.52pm local time, the last kick of an epic night. Eric Dier, England’s fifth penalty-taker was running towards a scrum of his team-mates. Colombia’s players were sinking to their knees and England had reminded a global audience that, contrary to the impression they may have given for much of the previous 30 years, they do know how to win a penalty shootout, after all.
It was a euphoric way to go through and these are the moments, surely, when England's followers can be forgiven for daring to believe something special is building. England have arrived in the quarter-finals and the World Cup is suddenly filled with all sorts of new possibilities.
This was their first knockout victory in a World Cup for 12 years. It was only their seventh, in any major tournament, since 1966, and now they play Sweden on Saturday for the right to play Russia or Croatia in the semi-finals.
The celebrations at the end told their own story after Dier had joined Harry Kane, Marcus Rashford and Kieran Trippier in scoring from 12 yards. Jordan Henderson’s miss – or, rather, David Ospina’s save – ultimately counts for nothing because of Mateus Uribe hitting the woodwork for Colombia and Jordan Pickford blocking Carlos Bacca’s effort, ensuring Moscow, 2018, is not added to a list that includes Turin, 1990; Saint-Etienne, 1998, and Gelsenkirchen, 2006, plus in the European Championships at Wembley, 1996; Lisbon, 2004, and Kiev, 2012.
For England, this was their chance to show they could flourish when the heat of the battle was rising dangerously close to intolerable. Colombia's supporters had filled the stadium in swathes of bright yellow, bouncing and swaying like human blancmange. They chose to bellow rather than sing the words to their national anthem – Oh gloria inmarcesible – and it was quickly brought home that, even missing James Rodríguez, José Pekerman's team occupied a superior rung of the football ladder than Tunisia or Panama, or the scratch Belgium XI who England encountered in the group stages.
Not that Gareth Southgate’s team were cowed. England played with so much raw energy that, if anything, it might have served them better if someone could occasionally have put a foot on the ball to stop and look around. Perhaps there was simply no time and, with everything was so fast and frenetic, it was just inevitable there would be moments of carelessness. Still, England carried out Southgate’s instructions to play with freedom, to show adventure, to hold out their chests and demonstrate they knew how to take care of a football, too.
That was not straightforward when Kane was being shackled by Yerry Mina, a centre half of such formidable size. Raheem Sterling, as always, ran into a few cul-de-sacs but at least he kept making mischief, never too disheartened when something failed to come off. Trippier’s right-sided forays were another prominent feature.
Yet it proved difficult to get behind the Colombia defence and when they threatened from set pieces there were countless examples when all sorts of pulling and manhandling in the penalty area went unpunished. England won one penalty this way but it was difficult to tot up how many times the same occurred.
That Colombia were going to play with an edge became clear early on when Juan Cuadrado started needling Harry Maguire and England were certainly entitled to be aggrieved, towards the end of the first half, when Trippier was lining up a free-kick and Wilmar Barrios took exception to Henderson’s proximity to the defensive wall. Barrios dealt out his retribution by lifting his head backwards into his opponent’s jaw. Henderson ended on the floor and Barrios was lucky to escape with a yellow card, as demonstrated by his grateful hand-shake with the American referee, Mark Geiger, and both linesmen as the two sets of players went off for the interval.
By that stage it must have jarred with Southgate’s wishes that England were finding it so difficult to examine the goalkeeping of Ospina. Colombia’s players might have thought the same, presumably, about Pickford. Even so, it was a riveting occasion, gripped with tension and the unshakeable feeling the players had very little interest in exchanging shirts at the end of the match.
Colombia to put it bluntly lost the plot when Carlos Sánchez was reminded there is nothing in the rules to allow rugby-tackling inside the penalty area. Sánchez had both arms round Kane as Trippier swung over the corner and, sooner or later, teams are going to realise they cannot keep getting away with this form of premeditated obstruction.
Colombia took wild exception to the penalty decision. The protests were so chaotic Kane’s penalty was delayed for almost four minutes. What nerve the captain showed to keep his composure while all this was going on. His penalty went straight down the middle, Ospina dived to the right, and England had their lead.
Colombia waited until the 93rd minute before substitute Uribe let fly with a 30-yard volley. Pickford’s flying save was exceptional but it was Mina against Maguire at the resultant corner: Colombia’s tallest player against England’s. The man in yellow won the header, the ball bounced off the turf and Trippier could not stop it on the line. Yet England came through, eventually.
COLOMBIA (4-3-2-1): Ospina; Arias (Zapata, 116 mins), Mina, D Sanchez, Mojica; Barrios, C Sanchez (Uribe, 79 mins), Lerma (Bacca, 61 mins); Cuadrado, Quintero (Muriel, 88 mins); Falcao. Booked: Barrios, Arias, C Sanchez, Falcao, Bacca, Cuadrado.
ENGLAND (3-5-2): Pickford; Walker (Rashford, 113 mins), Stones, Maguire; Trippier, Alli (Dier, 81 mins), Henderson, Lingard, Young (Rose, 102 mins); Sterling (Vardy, 88 mins), Kane. Booked: Henderson, Lingard.
Referee: Mark Geiger (USA).
– Guardian service
