Finally, at 11.52pm local time, the last kick of an epic night. Eric Dier, England’s fifth penalty-taker was setting off on his victory run, soon to be submerged by his teammates. Gareth Southgate had forgotten, yet again, he was supposed to be nursing a dislocated shoulder and here was the hard proof that England, contrary to the impression they might have given for much of the previous 30 years, did know how to win a penalty shootout, after all.
It was a euphoric and nerve-shredding finale and these are the moments, surely, when England’s followers could be forgiven for daring to dream that something special is building, something exhilarating and rare. Yes, it would be dangerous to get too carried away but right here, right now, to hell with anyone who insists it is time for restraint. England have arrived in the quarter-finals and the World Cup is suddenly filled with all sorts of new possibilities.
Southgate had told us he wanted England’s penalty-takers to “own the process” and they did just that, eventually. It was a close-run thing but Jordan Henderson’s miss – or, rather, David Ospina’s save – mattered little in the end because of Mateus Uribe hitting the crossbar with Colombia’s fourth effort and Jordan Pickford saving the next one from Carlos Bacca, ensuring Moscow 2018, will be remembered much more happily than Turin 1990, Saint-Etienne 1998, and Gelsenkirchen 2006, and not forgetting the European Championships at Wembley 1996; Lisbon 2004 and Kiev 2012.
An hour after the match, England’s supporters were still partying at one end of the stadium. They did not want to leave and who could blame them when, after three penalties each, England were one down and staring at another harrowing story of deja vu
Dier joined Harry Kane, Marcus Rashford and Kieran Trippier in showing why all that practising of penalties on the training ground was necessary. Kane had also scored from 12 yards to give England the lead shortly before the hour and it was not until the third minute of stoppage time that Colombia prolonged the match by concocting the equalising goal. Another team might have wilted after such an agonisingly late equaliser. That, however, was one of the more impressive parts of England’s performance. Dier might have won the match with a free header in the second period of extra time. Danny Rose, another of England’s substitutes, had a golden chance and in the extra 30 minutes there was hardly a single moment when it felt as though Southgate’s players might go under.
This was only England’s second shootout victory in eight attempts at major tournaments, the other coming against Spain in Euro 96, and in the process they answered so many questions about their nerve and temperament for the big occasion. Ever since he took the job Southgate has been asked whether his team could cope when the heat of the battle was dangerously close to intolerable. We know now that, yes, they do. Yet the shootout was only part of the story against tough, obdurate opponents – “animals” according to Chris Waddle in his radio commentary – on a night when Colombia’s supporters had filled this stadium in swathes of bright yellow, bouncing and swaying like a human blancmange and creating a raucous din.
They bellowed the words of their national anthem – Oh Gloria inaccessible – and outnumbered their English counterparts in a way that is rarely seen. Yet just consider, for example, Kane’s competitive courage when he had his first penalty and Colombia’s players, to put it bluntly, lost the plot about the decision to penalise Carlos Sánchez for grappling him to the floor at a corner. The protests were so chaotic Kane’s penalty was delayed by almost four minutes. What nerve the captain showed to improve his position at the top of the Golden Boot scoring chart – his sixth goal and his third penalty.
The uproar before Kane’s penalty was shocking in other ways but Southgate had told his players not to react to the provocation and, in that respect, the game against Panama was a valuable lesson.
Would it be the same old story for England? It felt that way after Falcao, Cuadrado and Luis Muriel scored Colombia’s first three penalties of the shootout. Instead, Pickford had a heroic role in the victory. Dier’s penalty was not entirely convincing but Ospina was face down, distraught, and the victory run was under way.