ALIVE AND KICKING
England beats Colombia (on penalties, of course),
MOSCOW— Wasn’t this supposed to be The Impossible Job?
On a fractious, fevered night in the suburbs of Moscow, Tuesday had almost turned to Wednesday and England looked at the clock and looked at themselves and looked at something that looked like being that day all over again. The one they’ve lived a lifetime’s worth of. The one they dread the most as it rolls around every four years or so.
Even in this, the most unpredictable World Cup in history, leaving precedent and logic in its wake, England would be the ones to scratch the record and stop the madness.
But then they didn’t. They strolled on up, held their nerves like never before and turned the volume all the way up.
Gareth Southgate’s English had told us all they weren’t like the ones that had gone before. But they had to prove it. Under the white hot lights Tuesday and in a red hot battle of nerves and wills and spirits, they had been the marginally better side for much of it. But you still couldn’t say they had quite proved it.
When Colombia finally found the nerves they had nonsensically let fray under the nose of a referee who had long since lost the plot, Southgate’s side surrendered a lead. Just minutes away from making it through to the quarterfinals, they let Yerry Mina soar to equalize and proved, well, nothing.
The Colombians came at them in the early part of extra time like a team given a second life, which they were. They are also incredibly talented, even with injured playmaker James Rodriguez having to watch all this madness from the sidelines. But England didn’t buckle then and even when the contest went to where it has always ended for them — a penalty shootout — they again stood strong and true.
None was stronger or truer than goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, or his left wrist to be exact. The goalkeeper, who only made his international debut in November, followed up a save for the ages during normal time with the shootout’s decisive moment, throwing himself to his right and raising a steely left hand to stop Carlos Bacca’s spot kick. Midfielder Eric Dier strode forward and took a torch to the history books.
England had won a penalty shootout at this World Cup having lost every one that went before. They now roll along into the last eight of a wide-as-theVolga open tournament. Can they win it? Of course they can. Of the eight teams that remain in Russia, six can genuinely win the thing. But given all that’s occurred here these past few weeks we’re not going to rule out the other two either.
For Southgate, the impossible has already been made possible. The pressure of dealing with the most unrealistic expectations in maybe all of sports in the unrelenting territory that is tabloid Britain has made this a poisoned posting for half a century and more. As the false dawns came and broke, things only got darker.
The country has had nine permanent and three caretaker managers since they last made a real impression at a World Cup, the epic adventure turned teary tragedy at Italia 90. Of those12, only one has won what could be considered a significant honour in the game after leaving the England job. Even that — Steve McClaren’s Dutch top flight title in 2010 — is debatable, falling outside the big five European leagues.
Young or old, the task of delivering the undeliverable would appear to take an incurable toll on the psyche and the soul. Even when they went the foreign route, vaunted names ended up haunted men by the English experience. Fabio Capello said recently of the experience: “We get to the World Cup and there’s that ghost, smothering you with its white tentacles.”
Southgate, though, is a smoother operator. He has evaded those tentacles and kept his young, vibrant team looking only forward, not over its shoulder at those ghosts. Initially it helped his case that expectations were mercifully lowered for this tournament. But even as the tabloids reverted to hype he has kept a steady hand.
Hell, England pitched up here for this knockout tie on the same day that their biggest national paper chose to make a joke of Colombia’s narco war past, punning captain Harry Kane’s surname for a ‘Go Kane’ headline.
On a chilly evening at the Spartak Stadium, England lost the inconsequential battles they once would win — in the stands where Colombians vastly outnumbered and outnoised them. But out on the glistening green, Southgate got the better of one of the best coaches remaining in the World Cup.
Jose Pekerman, in his fitted navy suit and casual leather trainers, looked like South America’s coolest uncle as he prowled the sidelines. South- gate, in his now trademark waistcoat, looked more like a cross between a snooker player and that menswear department clerk who convinces you to blow $85 on a pair of couture socks with pineapples on them.
Southgate’s side looked the better fit when the contest was clean. Then it got niggly and referee Mark Geiger, the only American at the World Cup, left us thinking we’d be better off with none.
The game descended into a battle of wits and wills. Southgate’s men, with Pickford supreme, John Stones immovable in defence and Kane leading like a man who’s done it for a lifetime, kept the wits and wills best.
A night unlike any that went before. Now anything seems possible.