I'd love to go in chronological order of the quarter finals, recapping a disappointingly routine win for the French, and - for my money - the game of the tournament between Brazil and Belgium, but how can I..... when Chris Waddle is in tears, Alan Shearer is singing into a breadstick and the watching nation are carelessly wasting a virtual tanker full of beer in the air as England continue to march on. (Although kudos to Leeds for applying some Yorkshire prudence for their lack of spillage!). Even Wrighty is making us ignore his awful 'analysis' and an unhealthy obsession with Marcus Rashford while moonlighting from ITV, by demonstrating exactly where his Fox TV commitments rank against his desire to join in the celebrations.
It is all delightfully surreal. By this stage of the tournament, Birchy and I have usually breathed a sigh of relief that England have departed - to finally end the torture, we've dissected all that is wrong with the game, and reached prophetic conclusions on whether Crouchy offered more of "a threat" than Emile Heskey. But the last couple of days, I've had more people than I can mention come up to me and offer congratulations, as well as mention there's not much to dislike about this England team. It's all very strange.
You could argue that Sven, Fabio and Roy were all in on the conspiracy. Here boys, pocket a few million, your job is to drive expectations for future generations into the gutter, such that scrambling a point against Panama would be a welcome "well earned point against underrated opposition". This England team had arrived with zero expectations and has exceeded them by such a margin, that well, why stop the train now? What is most enjoyable about this run is that Gareth is demonstrating to us the power of the team over the individual. Tournament after tournament, there are always teams that make you scratch your head as to why can they play like that and England can't. (Read.. Iceland, Costa Rica, Turkey). Finally, we are that team. Germany, Brazil, Spain and probably a few more that are now on their holidays, would struggle to pick any individual England player to put in their respective teams (Kane aside), but the sum of the parts is getting it done.
Saturday's game against Sweden just carried on the theme. On paper, we were better than them. In theory, it should be a fairly routine win. But it never happens that way, right? - only, it did. England managed the game really well, never looking in danger of losing their grip on the game throughout, and while Raheem hasn't quite forgotten he last scored for England when playing for the under 15's every time he gets into the box, everyone on the team played its part. Just a very solid team effort. Bravo!
So for the other quarter finals:
While yes, England were fortunate to face Colombia without James, France didn't too badly with Cavani sitting on the sidelines. Without him, Uruguay were a spent force....never got close to a composed and professional French team who are gathering momentum. All rather uneventful, keeper blooper aside.
Brazil v Belgium was a pure delight. The game of the tournament for me, living up to all of the expectations placed upon it. Quite why it took until this game to realise the benefits of playing De Bruyne further forward, I just don't know. But they now look an even better team as a result. Brazil played their part, pounding Courtois' goal but also demonstrating some glaring misses too. Overall though, the better team won, and the team that has been playing on imaginary ice skates all tournament got exactly what they deserved from the referee. Goodbye number 10, don't trip on the step on the way out.
Finally, Russia v Croatia. I have to admit, towards the end I was cheering on Croatia as our potential opponents. Rather than playing against 80,011 crazy locals in Moscow and an unnamed number of "sports scientists", I'm good with playing the 11 men of Croatia. Not that it will at all be easy, far from it, they are a proper team with a midfield several classes above the three lions. But I've convinced myself that this will make any overall triumph more legitimate. It also helped that they looked absolutely knackered and the Croatian keeper was down to one working leg for the entire extra-time period.
Credit to the hosts though, who ran and tackled like their lives depended on it [insert Vladimir pun], and clearly overreached in getting a team containing a 39 year old centre half who came out of retirement, so close to the semi-finals. A terrific first goal and great comeback for 2-2, but the effects of the performance drinks spectacularly wore off precisely before the start of the penalties. The one sour note being we are denied a Godzilla-like wrestling match between Harry Maguire and Artem Dzyuba in the semi. Maybe Vlad can bring them all back for the closing ceremony for a "Whose head is bigger" contest, with a special appearance from Sam Allardyce to make it even more interesting.
As for semi-final predictions: I just see two very evenly matched games that will be a lot of fun to sit back and enjoy.
So here we go. Into the unknown. We've already burst through the ceiling of expectation... C'mon England, let's carry on the charge to see if Alan and his breadstick knows how to dance on it...
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