Southgate so proud of his ‘tough’ Three Lions stars
Gareth Southgate praised his England team’ s mental strength after they beat Colombia on penalties to reach the World Cup quarter-finals.
The Three Lions also had to withstand verbal and physical provocation from their opponents throughout the game, as well as ending their shoot-out hoodoo when Jordan Pickford saved from Carlos Bacca and Eric Dier scored with the decisive kick to guide England through 4-3 after a 1-1 draw.
Southgate, who famously missed the shoot-out penalty that saw England eliminated from Euro 96, said of his men: “They are tough.
“We talked long and hard about owning the process, and they kept calm – great credit to all our staff and the players who’ve taken everything on board, and we got our reward.
“We looked at individual technique, we looked at how we needed to be as a team.
“The goalkeeper’s very important in that.”
A hostile atmosphere on the field and in the stands made England’s triumph all the more impressive and Southgate admitted Colombia’s approach was not a surprise.
He said: “I don’t know if I ‘didn’t expect it’ but we didn’t rise to it, which was brilliant. A couple of times we lost our cool a little bit but generally speaking we kept our nerve.
“Our fans that were here were brilliant but it was almost an away game, so to deal with all of that was exceptional.
“It’s something the players can always look back on now and draw on as an experience.
“We’ve talked about creating their own stories and creating their own history and we’ve done a little bit of that tonight.
“We go to a quarter-final, but I don’t want to go home yet.”