It is, we can confirm, very much coming home
With a couple of minutes of stoppage time to see out, England were agonisingly close to reaching the World Cup quarter finals. Harry Kane’s second half penalty looked to have been enough for Gareth Southgate’s side, who had restricted Colombia to very few chances.
But of course, this is England…
Up popped Yerry Mina to head home an equaliser. Extra-time, penalties and another disappointing major tournament elimination now seemed inevitable.
Not this night, however. Extra-time passed, and despite Jordan Henderson missing the first spot-kick of the shoot-out, a combination of Mateus Uribe hitting the underside of the bar and Jordan Pickford saving brilliantly from Carlos Bacca allowed Eric Dier to send England through.
Their first major tournament shoot-out win since the quarter-finals of Euro ’96, this clearly meant a lot to English football fans.
Of all people, it was the reaction of Ross Kemp to the win which seemed to best sum up the feelings of a nation. Yep, Grant Mitchell himself fired off a tweet shortly after the result was confirmed.
A video attached to the tweet showed a shirtless, emotional Kemp putting into words just what it meant to see the Three Lions reach the last eight: everything.
“You will never know what that means to me,” he begins with a smile. “That is everything, everything,” he adds, suddenly looking a bit terrifying.
“We love you, boys. We f…. love you.”
Just look…
What a game, what an ending. Well done @England #ENGvCOL #EnglandvsColombia #threelions pic.twitter.com/l5qTfmfN2O
— Ross Kemp (@RossKemp) July 3, 2018
The tweet from the former EastEnders actor has been widely shared in the hours since the game in Moscow, already passing 4,000 retweets.
Now into the last eight, England will face Sweden, who beat Switzerland by a single goal, for a place in the semi-finals. Should they win that game, the winners of Russia and Croatia’s quarter-final will stand between them and a place in the World Cup final.
