Having successfully navigated their way out of the group stage, England now found themselves in an unfamiliar position: confidently heading into the knockouts of a major tournament. But how far would our self-belief carry us? We were about to find out...
Game 4: England 1-1 Colombia (England win 4-3 on penalties)
Getting past Colombia would not be an easy proposition. In addition to a number of quality players (Falcao, James Rodriguez, Cuadrado), Colombia play their football with what is often charitably termed "physicality". I instead will refer to them as the third and final part of the World Cup Shithouse Trilogy. With James ruled out before the game through injury, Colombia clearly made the tactical decision to go with Plan B, which was to shut up shop and kick the crap out of anybody who tried to come in through the door. Yellow cards (6 in total) were shared carefully around the team as they kicked, headbutted and wrestled their way through the game. This actually suited England rather well; Harry Kane was gifted another penalty (which he clinically dispatched once again), and Colombia's goal threat was largely muted as they focused more on bogging the game down rather than coming out and attacking a relatively frail England defence which had failed to keep a clean sheet against Panama just a few days earlier. Staring defeat in the face, the Colombians eventually decided to come out and attack. Uribe's powerful effort brought out a fantastically acrobatic save from Jordan Pickford. It looked as though England were going to see out the game and progress confidently into the quarters. Then, in the 94th minute...
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
Having been so effective at scoring from set pieces themselves, England were undone at the death by a header from a corner. It felt like a gut punch. The entire bar I was in let out a collective groan of despair, not just because of the heartbreaking nature of the equaliser but because of what would almost certainly be coming next: penalties. Prior to Russia 2018, England's record in penalty shootouts at major tournaments read "Played 7, Lost 6".
France '98: one of my earliest sporting heartbreaks. "Quickly Kevin, will he score?" [spoiler alert: he did not]
With this in mind, you can perhaps get some idea of the atmosphere once the penalty shootout got underway. The tension was so thick, you could've cut it with a butter knife. Kane and Rashford buried their pens, before it was Jordan Henderson's turn. I should have known something was up when he was doing keepy-uppys on the way to the penalty spot; after 120 minutes of football, you should know what the ball feels like. His penalty was weak and saved without too much trouble by Ospina. "Shit. This is how it ends", a dejected nation thought.
But all was not lost. Pickford had been twanging the bar during previous kicks, and on Colombia's fourth penalty it finally had the desired effect. Uribe blasted his penalty just over the bar instead of just under, and England were suddenly right back in it. The next Colombian pen was even more remarkable. Pickford leaped to his right, only to immediately see that the ball was heading to the center of the goal. With instinctive reflexes, he waved a hand back in the direction he had come and made the stop. Cue absolute bedlam.
A textbook Big Hand
The mathematics were simple: score our next penalty, and we would be through to the quarters. I confess that when I saw Eric Dier trudging forward to take the decisive pen, I was confused. Dier? Really? He was a defensive midfielder and hadn't exactly played that well at the World Cup. Nevertheless, he had the chance to send us into the quarter-finals. As he placed the ball on the spot, time slowed to a crawl. Holy shit holy shit holy shit.
YES!
As the ball nestled in the back of the net, pandemonium erupted. Immediately, a shower of lager misted over our heads, pints cast skywards by jubilant fans. Strangers hugged each other. I'm normally an anxious and timid individual, but I somehow found myself doing chest bumps with every single one of my friends. Several lads climbed on each others' shoulders as the chant went up: "Football's coming home". The party continued long afterwards, eventually spilling out onto the pavement where passing cars honked their horns in celebration. At that moment, it seemed like anything was possible.
Game 5: England 2-0 Sweden
We had done well to win our first World Cup knockout match since 2006, but if we were to avoid going out in the quarters then we'd first have to get past Sweden. They'd traditionally been somewhat of a bogey team for England in the past, leading to stalemates in both the 2002 and 2006 World Cups.
Although the 2006 game did yield one of my favourite England goals of all time. In the words of 2006-era Andy Gray, WHAT A HIT SON
Many (quite wrongly) saw this fixture as a bit of a freebie for England. Although Sweden might not have been the strongest team left in the tournament, they had more than earned their position in the quarter-finals on merit. In their group, they'd beaten Korea and Mexico, and come within a whisker of nicking a point from Germany too. They'd bested the Netherlands and Italy just to qualify for the tournament in the first place. Let's put it this way: they were no mugs. Would England be their next scalp?
Almost predictably, England opened the scoring with another header from a set-piece. This time it was Harry Maguire, who now had a goal of his own to cap off what had been an excellent tournament. He only had a handful of caps before the World Cup started, but you never would have guessed it from his assured presence on the ball. As well as being a danger from free kicks and corners, he often made great runs out from the back to relieve pressure from our defence and take the game to the opposition. Provided that he maintains his current form, he should be a guaranteed starter in tournaments to come.
Top-drawer bantz, too
Sterling was again in the strange position of simultaneously playing well and badly. His runs put all sorts of pressure on the Swedish defence and he created a number of goal scoring opportunities, only to fluff his lines or surrender possession at crucial moments. This was epitomised during one particular attack when he burst past the Swedish back line, controlled a long ball with a deft touch, and rounded the keeper within moments. However, instead of squaring it back to Kane for a routine finish, he tried to wind his way through covering defenders after his chance had gone, and ended up blazing his effort wide. Sterling had a good tournament overall, but was just missing a bit of extra quality to make him truly a game-changing player.
Frustration personified
Thankfully, Dele Alli made it 2-0 in the second half with a nicely worked move direct from the training ground. After that, England never looked back. We normally hold up to pressure in a World Cup game about as well as a sandcastle in an earthquake, but Southgate had seemed to instill a level-headed calmness in the squad. Though Sweden predictably came forward late in the game to try and fight their way back into it, Pickford was on fine form and produced a number of instinctive saves to keep his first clean sheet of the tournament.
A nation clenched.
Despite Sweden's late attempts, England never truly looked vulnerable. They continued to play their game and push back against the Swedes right up until the end. At the final whistle, there was euphoria. England had advanced to their first semi-final in nearly 30 years in the most unpredictable of fashions: a regulation 2-0 win. Could it really be coming home?
I recieved this meme literally minutes after the final whistle went
Game 6: England 1-2 Croatia
If England were to make it to a final, they'd have to get past Croatia. Perennial dark horses, for years Croatia have been a team that threatened to do something. Their centre midfield pairing of Modric and Rakitic was one of the best in the tournament, and they were surrounded by other brilliant players such as Mandzukic, Perisic, and-er- Dejan Lovren?
They can't all be world beaters, I guess
2018 was the tournament when Croatia finally seemed to realise their frightening potential. They took maximum points from their group, recording a 3-0 demolition of Argentina along the way.
BOSH
After the group stages, the Croatians grafted their way to the semi-finals through sheer hard work. They vanquished both Denmark and Russia after playing extra time and penalties. For lesser teams, this would have been mentally and physically exhausting, but Croatia seemed to approach every game knowing that there were very few countries in the world able to beat them in 90 minutes. Would England manage it?
The game started with a bang, as Trippier scored an absolute beauty of a free kick in the first five minutes.
Beckham-esque
While any goal is better than none, there is something to be said for the old football adage that the goal came 'too early' for England. Having to defend a lead for 85 minutes against a team who were almost guaranteed to create chances was no mean feat. It looked for most of the game we might hold on and do the unthinkable, but once Perisic nodded Croatia level it was difficult to see a way for England to crack on and win. Though Croatia had played 240 minutes of football in the previous week, it was England who seemed to be the more exhausted of the two sides- Harry Kane more so than most. When Mandzukic got goalside of Stones in the second half of extra time, the outcome was inevitable. England were out, and Croatia deserved winners.
There seems to be a false narrative going around (perpetuated mostly by Modric) that England were undone by their own hubris and that we had underestimated Croatia going into the game. Nothing could be further from the truth. For all the memes and chants that football was "Coming Home", the majority of the English fans and media had their tongues wedged firmly in their cheeks. We had almost expected to be absolutely terrible in this tournament, and the fact that had made it so far was nothing short of astonishing. Speaking for myself, there was never an expectation that England would win the World Cup- anything other than a group stage exit would've been fine by me.
An alternative 2014 timeline
Game 7: Belgium 2-0 England
There was only one more thing to do before leaving Russia; fulfill our contractual obligations by appearing in the third-place play-off, a game which Southgate rightfully describe after the final whistle as "not a game any team wants to play in".
Seeing as the match was an absolute afterthought, I shan't go into it in depth. Suffice to say that Belgium showed that they were, in fact, a better team than us (which we knew already), and ran out with a comfortable 2-0 win.
Post-mortem While things ended on a bit of dampener, it didn't change the fact that England had vastly surpassed expectations. Arguably their biggest achievement wasn't necessarily the results themselves, but changing the mood of the public towards our national team. In prior tournaments, it felt like we were watching Premier League superstars (Gerrard, Lampard, Rooney, etc) who were normally world-beaters for their clubs, but always seemed disinterested when they showed up for England and were far less than the sum of their parts. This was perhaps epitomised by the 2006 World Cup, where there seemed to be far more of a national conversation about what the wives and girlfriends of the players were up to rather than how the team themselves were getting on.
If you were wondering, they were busy losing to Portugal on penalties
In contrast, our 2018 squad seemed far more humble and professional, perhaps due to the assertive but understated leadership of Gareth Southgate. I admit that I didn't think he'd be the shot in the arm that England needed, but he more than showed his worth at this tournament.
And rocking a trademark M and S waistcoat while he did it
The mood that overtook the country was one of giddy delirium; England were playing well and winning games. That was all we'd ever wanted at a tournament! Don't get me wrong, the nation would have gone into absolute meltdown if we had somehow won the World Cup, but I think I speak for most fans when I say that we were ecstatic to have gone as far as we did. Unlike other nationalities, the English have never really been about winning at all costs; we're happy to go down in noble failure, just as long as we give a good account of ourselves and do our best. And this time, we actually bloody did.
England went into the World Cup as perennial underachievers and left a month later having equaled our best performance in nearly 30 years and with pride in the national team rightfully restored. Just how the hell did that happen?
First, some context. If we're being brutally honest, England have been middling for literally decades. After beating Germany 4-2 in the World Cup final at our home tournament in 1966, the closest we came in subsequent years was a semi-final in Italia 90, which we inevitably lost to the Germans.
Not that we hold a grudge against our Teutonic cousins or anything
Sadly, things had taken even more of a nosedive in recent years. England's last knockout victory at a World Cup was a 1-0 win in 2006 against mighty Ecuador. In 2014 we were knocked out in the group stage after just two matches, and in Euro 2016 suffered the indignity of being eliminated by Iceland, a nation of a few hundred thousand people that was previously best known for volcanoes, Bjork, and eating fermented shark.
Oh, bore off already
Things were to get more embarrassing for England. After the humiliation against Iceland, the English FA decided to get realistic. England were crap, and indeed had been crap for decades. Why couldn't we spin this to our advantage? Other teams with far less quality than us were able to progress through tournaments by playing dour football, defending well, and sticking in the boot against more gifted opposition. A giant lightbulb went on above the FA headquarters: "That could be us!". The solution was to hire Sam Allardyce, a manager with a proven track record of keeping terrible teams in the Premier League.
To be fair, he's also always good value for the lols
This would not be easy to stomach. England fans had long had delusions of grandeur (1966! Bobby Moore! Three Lions!), and Big Sam promised a style of football that was not so much 'tiki-taka' as it was 'agricultural'. And we're talking Soviet-turnip-collective levels of agriculture here: 4-4-2, long balls from the back, knockdowns by a tall number 10 to a nippy number 9. To give you an idea of how enjoyable this is to watch, one Everton fan forum noted that Allardyce's nicknames while managing their club ranged from "curry udders", "chippy tits", to my personal favourite, "The Count of Monte Bisto".
The FA knew all of this going in. It might not be pretty, but it was a Faustian pact worth making so long as we wouldn't be humiliated every two years by nations that half our squad would struggle to locate on a map. Unfortunately, in the event Allardyce lasted precisely one game before being forced to resign after being caught up in a newspaper sting. Morale was at rock bottom.
In the absence of a cohesive plan, the FA decided to temporarily give the poisoned chalice position to the under-21 manager, who had turned down the job earlier in the summer and took pains to tell anyone who'd listen that he didn't really want to be England manager. Yep, Gareth Southgate took some persuading.
With qualification for Russia 2018 soon assured, Southgate's next hurdle was picking his squad. Inevitably, the English media love to have a field day with the squad selection. After all, somebody has to be left out of a 23 man squad, and after England are predictably sent home early it's easy to say "we would've gone through if only we'd taken [insert any one of fifty less-fancied players here]". For Southgate, his task was relatively straightforward. Wayne Rooney had recently broken the England scoring record, but had hardly set the Premier League alight after his move from Man United back to Everton. In the end, it was an easy choice to leave out Rooney, who instead spent his summer moving across the pond to DC United. Similarly, Joe Hart had been England keeper for a number of years, despite a growing body of evidence that he wasn't actually very good. Pep Guardiola had shipped him out of Man City after being there for all of five minutes, and a lackluster Serie A loan was followed by a middling spell at West Ham punctuated by a number of blunders. Not that he was bitter about it, or anything.
England would be sure to miss his calm, measured presence at the back
After dropping a few of these older players who no longer deserved a spot, the England squad was looking pretty decent. It was the third youngest in the tournament, and- on paper at least- things looked well-balanced, bold, and optimistic. After some solid wins in the warm-up games (including a banger of a goal from Marcus Rashford), the squad were ready to head off to Russia.
Although if you're trying to temper expectations, this is the last thing you bloody need.
Game 1: England 2 -1 Tunisia
Going into the tournament, this looked like one of the worst possible opening matches. Face a genuinely brilliant team, and it's easy to take a defeat on the chin and say "they were just better than us". Face a World Cup minnow, and you should roundly batter them. Tunisia falls into the sticky middle category by being a team that's still a relatively tricky proposition, but who you should nevertheless beat. Failure to do so is a real blow to morale. In 2010, England's monumentally woeful 0-0 draw against Algeria was later described as "England's footballing nadir"(admittedly, this was before the Iceland game), and the turgid display knocked our confidence to such an extent that we were pretty much dead in the water from that point on. England would need a good performance against Tunisia in 2018 to avoid the same fate.
England started brightly, and when Harry Kane scored inside 11 minutes, it was an encouraging sign. Long-suffering England fans had been here before though; Steven Gerard scored against the USA in the first four minutes of our 2010 campaign, and we all remember how that ended.
"FFS" - every single England fan groaning in unison, 2010
It was in this game we got our first glimpse at what would go on to be a recurring theme of the World Cup: shithousery. This almost inexplicable low-level cheating was a plague in the early stages of the tournament, before teams began to realise that VAR meant such transgressions would- shockingly- be punished. Kyle Walker might have been guilty of some basic shithousery when he gifted Tunisia a penalty by inexplicably swinging his arm in the box, but England were certainly more sinned against than sinning. England's first goals had shown we were dangerous at set pieces, and Tunisia did their utmost to make sure that England- and Harry Kane in particular- were not to get on the end of corners.
The homoerotic tension was palpable.
It looked like England were running on World Cup autopilot; going ahead early before gifting the opposition an undeserved equaliser and losing any desire to impact the game. We looked as though we were sleepwalking to a stalemate, and it was all so crushingly predictable. That was, at least, until we got one more corner in the 91st minute...
F*&!#@ GET IN YOU BEAUTY
Not for the first time at Russia 2018, this sent England fans through the roof- though admittedly, some let it go to their heads more than others.
Someone always has to go overboard, don't they?
In the most un-England like of fashions, we'd had snatched all 3 points at the death. With a winnable game against Panama coming next, things were looking pretty rosy. Maybe it was time to dare to dream?
By the always excellent David Squires
Game 2: England 6-1 Panama
To be fair, Panama weren't expected to do much. This was their debut tournament, and in many ways it was a great achievement for a nation of their size and footballing pedigree to even get to the tournament. Again, this in itself offers a potential banana skin to competitors: anything other than a comprehensive win would simply not be good enough. How would England respond to this mental pressure?
It's a point so banal that it barely needs saying, but the early goal was important. Against opposition of Panama's level, you're expected to chalk up at least a few goals. The longer the game stays at 0-0, the more frustrated the bigger team becomes and the more the underdogs begin to realise that they might actually be able to nick something from the game. Fortunately for us, John Stones rose to power in a header within the first ten minutes and England never looked back.
Not that we didn't have to overcome difficulties for the victory. During that first goal, Maguire was essentially being grappled to the floor, and it was a tactic that would be repeated often throughout the game. Panama's defence had apparently decided before the match started that their best tactic against England would be to turn the shithousery up to 11 and just hope that they'd get away with it.
Which was rather optimistic when holds such as this are rarely seen outside the world of Olympic wrestling
Morally, it was undeniably satisfying to see Panama's shithousery being punished again and again by the ref, and Kane dutifully notched up two textbook penalties. A masterclass in set-piece strategy was finished off again by Stones (which hilariously put him ahead of Rooney for the number of goals scored at a World Cup), and Jesse Lingard piled in too by scoring a contender for goal of the tournament. A neat one-two followed by a curling, dipping effort into the top right corner, it was one to savour.
You can practically hear it being burned to the highlights DVD as you're watching it
Again, Panama were not the toughest opposition you could face at a World Cup. But England going in at half-time in a major tournament being 5-0 up? England had literally never had it so good.
Again, some fans let the performance go to their heads
Harry Kane's hat-trick was completed by a fortunate deflection off his heel, which really is the kind of goal that you only score when things are already going your way. In so doing, Kane became only the third English player to score a hat-trick at a World Cup.
Game 3: England 0-1 Belgium
The final game of the group stage saw England in the unfamiliar position of having already qualified. Normally, we'd desperately be chasing an unlikely win against previously underestimated opposition, whilst the TV coverage would feature boffins in the studio running computer simulations to explain what specific combination of results elsewhere we would need to go through. Not so this time; no drama, no fuss. It was all very Southgate: professional, organised, confident.
With Belgium also winning two out of two, the final group stage game placed both teams in a difficult position. The winning team would theoretically have an easier game next, but would paradoxically face a much tougher route to the final. The loser would have to overcome the Group H winners, but would face a much easier stroll as the knockouts progressed. With both teams through and little motivation to go all out for the win, it wasn't surprising to see both sides make wholesale changes. Who would seize the opportunity to impress?
Unfortunately, it was Adnan bloody Januzaj. Having burst onto the scene at United a few years ago, his career seemed to be fizzling out after unsuccessful loans to Borussia Dortmund and *cough* Sunderland. I was honestly surprised to see his name on the Belgian team sheet, and even more surprised when he curled in an admittedly brilliant goal to seal what had otherwise been a rather dull affair. Aside from a Marcus Rashford one-on-one that he somehow failed to convert, there was very little to write home about. It probably says a lot that the undisputed highlight of the game was when Batshuayi tried to celebrate the goal by lashing the ball into the back of the net, only to accidentally hit the post and see it ricochet back into his face.
THWACK
To be fair, he took it pretty well after the game:
In any case, it didn't really matter all that much. England had already improved on their 2014 performance and successfully navigated their way out of the group stage, where they would face off against the Cocaine Kings* themselves: Colombia.
(*not an officially sanctioned nickname)
See you again soon for a full round-up of England's jaunt through the knockouts!
Spring has sprung across the UK, the Premier League is pretty much done and dusted, and thoughts are already turning towards the summer; specifically, the World Cup. The England national team are currently bang on track; after qualifying for Russia 2018 with relative ease and defeating a European heavyweight in an essentially meaningless friendly, expectations are sky-high. After all, when has that exact sequence of events ever backfired in the past?
And so, like many groups of young Englishmen up and down the country, the national team will soon be packing their bags and heading off for a European jaunt this summer. As you might expect, the England squad contains several of the core lads holiday archetypes. Let this be your guide to who's who.
