England are going to the final now, it’s inevitable
Marcel knows guys
Yeah that’s why I mentioned it mate
Watching it back there. Some performance from Harry Kane last night. He terrorised the Colombian defense. Two clear now on 6 of Big Romelu in the goalscoring charts as well. Only other players left in the tournament are on 3 or less.
David Beckham was famously nicknamed Golden Balls.
Harry Kane may yet be given the nickname Golden Ball, or at the very least, Golden Boot.
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Vardy was pisssssssssssssssssssed.
Stones and Maguire meanwhile, took some time to have a quiet word with their Colombian counterparts
I feel like a tout. I listened to World In Motion while striding purposefully through the IFSC at lunchtime yesterday.
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I’m not sure how I feel about Coach Southgate encouraging Fabian Delph to pop home for the birth of his third child, and miss a crucial last 16 game of the World Cup.
First child, sure, but third? She should be fit to spit that one out and be home to collect the kids from creche.
Doughty, obdurate matchplayers there were indeed. But Michael Cox is the only English journalist I’ve seen acknowledge that Colombia were alsothe better side once a game of football belatedly broke out.
High stakes, high intensity, incredibly emotional and pretty dirty games like that really inform you about the ability of players to deliver under the most intense pressure. I’d compare it to a county final.
Some players, to quote an oft used TFK phrase, are great men to cycle downhill with a wind behind them but few stand up like Harry Kane, Kieran Trippier and Raheem Sterling last night once things started to go against England.
Southgate will surely have learned that some players don’t have the stomach for it. It’ll be interesting to see if Dele Alli, for example, is left out on Saturday.
Another wonderful display of humanity from Gareth Southgate. What a splendid ambassador for England’s association football community he is.
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Marina Hyde knows the score here.
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Rose will have to come in for Young- the latter offers nothing but bitching to the ref. Let Henderson sit but not sure who goes in with him as Ali is a coward and Dier is woeful. I thought Maguire did well last night but Colombia played right into his hands and never ran at him or turned him on his weaker left side. Kane was outstanding - really led the line.
You live as a team and you die as a team.
Colombia are a fine side. It’s not realistic to go through 120 minutes plus four separate sets of stoppage time and expect them to not have the upper hand at certain stages.
Those stages came in the final 15 minutes of normal time and then the first half of extra-time.
However England steadied the ship very well and were once again, comfortably the better team in the second half of extra-time, as they had been for the first 75 minutes of normal time.
England can take a triple positive from last night. They established themselves as the better team, then came through a potentially very difficult situation to re-establish that dominance, and finally they completed the job by having the mental resolve to slay the bogey of the penalty competition.
What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, and every England player and most importantly the England team is undoubtedly now stronger as a result of last night’s events.
You’d prefer to win the game rather than draw and advance in the lottery but what ultimately transpired could do a lot more for the confidence of this young England side than just seeing out a run of the mill 1-0 win.
In real bonus territory now for England. Sweden will be formidable opposition. As has been chronicled they’ve already beaten France and knocked out Netherlands, Italy and Germany. They’ll be cock sure of beating England.
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Not half as cock sure as many Irish people were that Colombia were going to beat England.
TBF, Colombia didnt lose to England so they were half right.
Has Danny Murphy gotten it with both barrels off the English media today for his INTERNET faux pas last night?
England were the better team for all of normal time last night, Columbia pummeled then for injury time and particularly the first half of extra time which was the most dominant period anybody had, but England steadied the ship in second half of extra time and were hardly hanging on at that stage
The better team by a distance over the match, but it was a dreadful game of football
It’s probably a 50/50 v Sweden but I have a fancy for England