England make it 8

Day 20 WorldCup2018

And.....breathe. Phew. England won the battle of Moscow to become the 8th quarterfinalists. And, boy of boy, did they do it the hard way. A goal conceded in the last minute and a win after penalties. Just another day of head shaking excitement at this incredible World Cup.

Who would have predicted these 8 countries in at this stage? On one side of the draw you've got your perennial favourites (Brazil), two extremely talented teams (France, Belgium) who could win this thing if they get their act together for the next three matches and a very strong dark horse, Uruguay. The other side is made up of Russia (really, how did they get there?), Sweden (there has to be one outsider, right? But hold on, there's more than one), England (football's forever coming home) and Croatia who are probably thinking, "how can we not make it to the final....we've got Modric and Rakitic and a whole bunch of other trending, hyped up players."

England won their first shootout at a World Cup, and they came through what came close to a football war. It was nasty, very nasty at times. And the Colombians sensed the referee was their for the emotional taking. They harassed and harangued him, and forced him to flash his yellow cards as a his only form of defence. England didn't fall apart as they have in the past. They didn't succumb to the provocations and if it hadn't been for that late, late Colombian goal we would have been talking about a hard-fought 1-0 win, instead of an historic shootout win.

I just have to mention that I saw about 30 seconds of Sweden's win against Switzerland. My whole work day was planned around watching England, so I'm sorry Swedes and Swiss, I had no time for you. My flaw in my plan for the day was I didn’t allow for extra time. So as England battled with the psychological blow of having to play extra time, I faced the challenge of dealing with the emotions of three and four year olds on a tennis court for the first time. Visions of Harry Kane scoring a winner fought for space with the mental energy required to keep my audience focused and not be distracted by what was going on anywhere but the tennis court.

And on a final, personal note, a vindication of sorts today. I argued when England beat Panama that no English player attempted to take on an opponent directly. I got only shakes of the social media heads at my preposterous suggestion of a display of a lack of skill. This was Chris Waddle after England's win today:

"We dominated the game and had a lot of the ball but we didn't create enough. We haven't got that player who picks it up and beats someone, before rolling the ball into a player to finish. It's hard work, tempo and set pieces which are proving important for us." Thank you Mr. Waddle.

As we look forward to what will be two amazing days on Friday and Saturday, a continuation of one of the greatest sporting events ever, I quote Gary Lineker, who last made England dream in those hot, crazy nights during Italia '90:

"Football. There is nothing like it. Nothing." After today, and the last twenty days, who can argue with that?