Colombia v England - Tues 3rd July 7pm

oohaahmortimer said:

What are Dier’s family connections with Charlton , apart from the name being an anagram of us as a club under Roland

Weegie Addick said:

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

Exiled_Addick said:

soapboxsam said:

Watched BBC highlights and Murphy said same think as I did, (and others)
Why didn't Vardy take 3rd or 5th penalty ?
I'm sure he had an injury because he seemed to be holding his groin unless that is a nervous reaction !

No way would Henderson and Dier get ahead of Vardy. So the win through the penalities may be serendipitous BUT we are in the quarter finals and live to fight another day.

My understanding is that Southgate and his team planned for penalties by looking st the mentality of the taker, not just the technique. They wanted players who they felt thrive in pressure situations.

I expected to see Vardy take one, but to be fair Henderson has been a penalty taker for his club, and none of them were bad penalties, the one that was saved was more a great save than poor penalty - the much maligned Ospina went the right way for nearly all of them.

To call the win serendipitous is a bit unfair.

Bizarrely i actually thought Dier's was a worse penalty than Henderson's, so i guess it's funny how these things work out. I know you can do as much planning for shoot outs as possible but for me you do still need an element of luck.

Think the luck was their one hitting the bar. Fractions.

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

Raith_C_Chattonell said:

I've always thought that Tim Vickery has his finger on the button when it comes to South American football. Here is his view from the Colombian perspective. Worth a read ... but hey, we still won

Before the last of the second-round matches, legendary former Colombia striker Faustino Asprilla tweeted his prediction that "with the happy and beautiful football that has always been our characteristic, today we will beat cold England."

But Colombia's team selection made that a nonstarter.

There had indeed been some happy and beautiful football from Colombia in this World Cup. In their second game, they produced one of the most impressive performances so far to see off Poland 3-0. It was, sadly, the only time they had Juan Quintero in tandem with a fit James Rodriguez. The two left-footed attacking midfielders make the ball fizz, generating ideas and creating chances, bringing into the game the flying right winger Juan Cuadrado and the predatory striker Radamel Falcao.

But Rodriguez, to the enormous misfortune of the quality of the spectacle, was not fit to face England. For a man named after James Bond, it was a case of from Russia with frustration.

Colombia coach Jose Pekerman was clearly terrified of the prospect of facing England without his star player, so he set up his team with three purely defensive midfielders. Aware that Falcao offers little when isolated, he pushed Cuadrado close to him, advancing right-back Santiago Arias, with Carlos Sanchez covering the vulnerable space down that flank. Wilmer Barrios played the holding role, and there was also a place for Jefferson Lerma to complete the midfield block. This was a strange option. A far more logical choice would have been Matheus Uribe, sufficiently dynamic to get up in support of the strikers, offer Quintero a positive pass and carry out marking duties as well. Lerma could supply none of this, and his selection rendered Colombia impotent with the ball.

It was reminiscent of the bad old days of Colombian football, before the mid-1980s, when coach Francisco Maturana took over and built a fine side around the midfield talents of Carlos Valderrama. Maturana complained that before he took over, he was watching "Valderrama on the bench while [defensive midfielder] Pedro Sarmiento was playing, based on a starting point that the opponent is more important than one's own team."

By choosing Lerma, Pekerman was announcing that England were more important than Colombia and that he did not have the resources to go toe-to-toe with Gareth Southgate's team. This was also the starting point for the many antics of the Colombia side, the most noticeable being the constant attempts to surround the referee, all aimed at slowing the game and breaking up the rhythm at the moment when England were in the ascendency.

This made for a very poor spectacle -- and was doubly depressing given that Pekerman has traditionally been associated with fine passing football. But it was surely counterproductive. Because one of the lessons from Tuesday night in Moscow would seem to be that the current England side are not worthy of such respect and that even without James Rodriguez, Colombia still possessed the resources to play a more ambitious game.

There is no shame in being eliminated from the World Cup -- only one team gets to take the trophy home. But there should be disappointment in Colombia and from a coach with the CV of Pekerman with the manner in which the team approached the game. A country whose tradition stresses, as Tino Asprilla put it, "happy and beautiful football" deserves better.

Great write up from Vickery. Colombia offered absolutely nothing for 75 minutes and were more intent on fouling and trying to get reactions out of us. If they'd actually gone for the win, they may well have beaten us.