Tuesday 3rd July 2018

The final day of the 1st knockout round of the World cup, and possibility of another disappointing match for this blog to write about.

I had no expectations other than if we played well we should win, if we played badly, we would probably lose. Simples.

But there is the working day to get through first, and outside it was another glorious sunny day, the sun shining down from cloudless skies, warming the day before we were even up. But it was breezy, which was nice.

And, well, you know the score by now: breakfast, coffee, work, early lunch, work, coffee, work until three when the first game of the day kicked off, but some lowlife chose that moment to call me, so I missed the first half hour of the game, and so watched the rest, from the sofa with my work computer on my lap, tapping away. Sweden won, 1-0, and so would play the winner for the evening game.

Jools came home, I cooked dinner, and we were all done and sitting on the sofa for ten to seven, in time for kick off. Although, in fairness, Jools spent the game doing sudoku and I winced and groaned through the 90 minutes. England got a penalty in the first half, and then settled down to just play the game out. It wasn’t pretty, but seemed like Columbia wore not going to score, more likely have more than one player sent off.

In the last minute of injury time, with their goalkeeper up for a corner, Cumbia head an equaliser.

Oh noes.

So, extra time, extra time in which England fell to pieces, like a boxer on the ropes, clinging on hoping for a judges decision. But in this case, penalties.

Which is where we ended up. Penalty hell.

England’s world cups are littered with defeats on penalties. Never having won a world cup one.

England miss their third, or was saved, so England on the brink.

The next Columbia one hit the bar, England score; so all level with one each to take.

And the England keeper kept theirs out, meaning Eric Dyer would shoot for the stars. And the next round.

And he scored; next door erupted in a chorus of cheers and shouts, whilst on TV the players ran around screaming with joy.

As you do.

It was five to ten, we had to be up in little over six hours. So bed, and sleep.