“Football’s coming home” blared over the speakers at Moscow’s Spartak stadium and ecstatic coach Gareth Southgate jumped into the arms of his support staff after England won a knockout game at a major tournament for the first time since 2006, defeating Colombia 4-3 on penalties after the teams were tied 1-1 after extra time.
For all the talk about games of darts at their Russian training base and a sense of togetherness between players from different clubs, the strongest piece of evidence yet that English football has changed came with victory in a penalty shootout. A brilliant save by goalkeeper Jordan Pickford and a decisive penalty by substitute Eric Dier sent England through to a World Cup quarter final against Sweden in Samara on Saturday.
England had faced penalty shootouts three times at a World Cup before, in 1990, 1998 and 2006, and lost them all. History was against them when, after 120 minutes of play, they found themselves in that all too familiar position of having to decide who would step up to the spot. Southgate had an even tougher task to rouse the troops because they came within seconds of winning the game in normal time, only to concede a goal in the 93rd minute with Colombia’s final attack of the match.
“I am so pleased for everybody involved,” Southgate said. “We deserved to win and played really well in a big game under pressure. It couldn’t have been a crueller blow on the final whistle.
“Shootouts are tough. We had talked long and hard about owning the process of a shootout. They kept calm. The players have taken it all on board; it’s a special moment for us.”