Special night for Southgate as England exorcise previous penalty failures

England advanced to the quarter-final of the World Cup in dramatic fashion in the Spartak Stadium in what their manager Gareth Southgate called “a special night.” 

England went into injury time in the lead, only to concede a late equaliser. They had to go second in the shoot out, were the first team to miss and yet they turned it around. Jordan Pickford saved Carlos Bacca’s spot kick to allow Eric Dier to slot home for a 4-3 win on penalties.

After the match Southgate praised his players preparation for penalties and his backroom team’s input to give them the platform for the shoot-out win.

“I had real faith in the goalkeeper and our penalty takers,” said Southgate even if for England it was the first time in four attempts that they had won a World Cup penalty shoot-out.

Southgate missed the decisive penalty for England against Germany in the Euro ’96 semi-final shoot out and admitted that penalty “will never be off my back sadly.”

“It will be something that will live with me forever. But hopefully this win tonight will give belief for the generations to follow and they won’t be hindered by history or expectation.

“Even when our first penalty was saved, I’ve seen enough shoot-outs where the first one missed isn’t the key one. I thought our ‘keeper would save one.”

There had been some criticism of Jordan Pickford and his perceived lack of height during the World Cup but the Everton goalkeeper even before the shootout stop pulled off a stunning finger tip save late in the game.

That was a Mateus Uribe strike just before Yerry Mina’s injury time goal cancelled out Harry Kane’s 55^thminute spot kick that seemed like it would be the winner.

“I was surprised he could reach it given his height,” said Southgate with his tongue firmly in his cheek when talking Pickford’s injury time save! “His athleticism around the goal is excellent. 

“He executed the plan in the shout out. We studied all of their penalty takers. Great credit to our collective staff to prepare in the right way and to our ‘keeper to execute the plan.

“I’m really proud of how my team played. We had a cruel blow on 90 minutes and had to show incredible resilience to come back from that.”

Colombian manager Jose Pekerman called the match “very rough”. The card count was six yellows to Colombia with only two for England and Pekerman’s team committed 23 fouls to England’s 13.

Southgate, who acknowledged that it was like an “away game” with five times more Colombian fans in the Spartak Stadium, said he was “proud of the discipline” from his team.

“We kept our composure in a really difficult environment and we deserved to win. We have talked a lot to this team about making their own history. They have bought into that. The composure they showed in a big match under pressure was very impressive.”

Next up is Sweden for Southgate’s men in a quarter-final in Samara. “Sweden are a team I respect hugely. They have good players and clear way of playing which is bloody difficult to play against.” 

Harry Kane picked up the man-of-the-match award as he scored his sixth goal of the tournament as well as successfully converting a spot-kick in the shoot out. 

He noted after the match that there were “so many emotions in that game. I thought we controlled that game but were unlucky to concede in the last minute. It showed the character. It is a big night for England.”

The moment. #threelions. pic.twitter.com/RVynUdrnza

— England (@England) July 3, 2018