Whatever you say I am, that’s what I’m not. On a night of taut, bruising knockout football in Moscow’s Spartak Stadium, it felt brilliantly fitting that Jordan Pickford should turn out to be the hero.
First things first. Do not adjust your reality. England really did win a World Cup match on penalties, the first time this has happened. It was always coming too, one way or another. Even as England took the lead against Colombia through Harry Kane, then conceded right at the end, England’s players must have felt something walking among them on the pitch, flickering in and out, the same old ghost at the feast.
Except, not quite in the same old way. Not all heroes wear capes. Not all people capable of flying through the air, arms outstretched to produce a moment of mind-bending, match-turning athleticism wear capes. But Pickford was both of these things in Moscow
The only answer to which, at the end of 120 minutes here, is: ‘Stick it on repeat, Thibaut old boy.’ Pickford can probably say he won this last-16 tie twice for England. First by producing the greatest save he is ever going to make in the final minute of normal time. As Mateus Uribe’s shot came barrelling towards the top corner Pickford read its flight, took three quick steps sideways, launched himself like a neon-green sheet blown from the line in a gale, extended his arm, extended his fingers, extended his fingernails and smacked the ball beyond the angle of bar and post.
It was almost too much to take in in the moment and was instantly buried by Colombia’s equaliser.
From the corner that followed Yerry Mina headed the ball down with such power it bounced up and into the goal off the top of Kieran Trippier’s head as he tried to block by a post. Colombia came jogging off as though they had won
And so to the inevitable. There was even time for a twist in the endgame to the endgame. With the shootout at 3-2 to Colombia, Jordan Henderson stepped up, juggling the ball to still his nerves. You kind of knew what was going to happen. David Ospina plunged down to palm his kick away. Same old England, always crashing in the same car.
Except not here. First Uribe spanked his kick on to the bar. Trippier found a little redemption of his own, placing his kick into the corner with a wonderful sense of ease.
And so to the decisive moment. Pickford was still on his line as Carlos Bacca went to strike his penalty, tensing at the knees, ready to spring. Pickford did not guess right. He knew already, plunging to Bacca’s left as the ball was struck but finding himself sightly out of sync, ahead of the ball, the downward flex of his upper body taking him away from its path just a little.
In that tiniest of moments, Pickford made another choice, raising his left arm in the last few inches of the ball’s flight. This is not something everyday human beings get to do. Watch a Major League Baseball hitter and what hits you is how late the hands move, and with such easy whiplash speed. The ball was almost on Pickford as he flinched but it was enough to send Bacca’s kick bouncing up and out and away from his goal, hanging in the air strangely as the sound seemed to rush out of the stadium.
It fell to Eric Dier to plant his kick low and hard and into the corner, and to spark scenes of genuinely unbound celebration at the end of a gruelling, sometimes nasty game.
Mina spent so long hugging and petting Raheem Sterling in the first half he will probably miss him tonight, might find himself snuggling up to his largest cushion just to get that simulated contact.
Before the hour the referee, Mark Geiger, finally snapped, the bleeps from his mental foul-ometer crackling away ever faster and finally shooting up through the roof as Kane was bundled over by Carlos Sánchez at a corner. Kane spanked the penalty away with ease. After which the stadium settled in for 30 minutes of toxic semi‑football, every arm grappled, every shin barked, ever hair on every neck twizzled and tweaked.
Colombia deserved their equaliser for a spirited performance. But Pickford deserved his moment too, one that had eluded Peter Shilton, David Seaman and Paul Robinson and which leaves England heading into the quarter-finals and a date with Sweden while feeling oddly light and free of baggage, the next 12 days entirely open.