Three Lions end penalty curse as they advance to quarterfinals.

England players celebrate winning the penalty shootout

The Three Lions are through to the quarterfinals of the ongoing Russia 2018 World Cup for the first time since 2006. Gareth Southgate’s voracious Three Lions have ended their
penalty curse as they advance to the next stage.

Who says practice does not make a man perfect?

The England coach had promised his side would not go the same way as so many of their predecessors went and he was right.

So much for being the World Cup’s greatest ever failures from 12 years.

England keeper Jordan Pickford and substitute Eric Dier were the heroes for the night.

Pickford made a brilliant save to deny Carlos Bacca, throwing out a left arm to keep the ball out after diving to his right side, sparing the blushes of fellow Jordan Henderson whose penalty kick was well kept out by the Columbian keeper, David Ospina.

England 1 Colombia 1 (4-3 pens): Harry Kane celebrates his goal

Three Lions captain Harry Kane, who had earlier opened the scoring from the spot; Rashford and Kieran Trippier were all successful in their respective kicks.

But Colombia looked favorites for the night when Jordan Henderson failed to find the net only for Mateus Uribe to hit the bar before Jordan Pickford’s moment of magic came to light.

This is a New England. A brave, a nerveless England, led by Gareth Southgate who delivered the Churchillian address his young players so dreadfully needed after 90 minutes and then again after 2 hours of football.

It was a shambolic, unpleasant, ill-tempered and black comedy at times but by God, it turned out just beautiful.

England is now just a win over Sweden away from making their greatest World Cup achievement on foreign soil.

No-one said it was going to be easy, that England was going to stroll it. We should have expected angst, tension, and tear-your-hair-out moments. And we got it in spades.

When Pickford pulled off a breath-taking stoppage-time save by throwing himself high to his left to keep out an Uribe penalty strike, England was just seconds away from only a 6th win in the knockout stages since the year 1966.

England outperformed a Colombian side that’d bickered, sneered and often cheated their way through a messy and ill-tempered game.

Yerry Mina leveled the scores

Then in the 93rd minute, giant defender and savior Yerry Mina soared high to meet a corner and arrow a header beyond Kieran Trippier, guarding the far post.

Harry Kane had earlier kept his cool among the carnage to smack home his 6^th goal of the tournament from the penalty spot in the 57th minute of the game.

He then became the first Englishman since Tommy Lawton in the year 1939 to find the net 6 games in a row and, with six in Russia so far, he’s in the comfortable driving seat to win the prestigious Golden Boot.

The Colombians were just a disgrace, even making Panama look paragons of virtue with some dirty tricks.

It often attested too much for American center referee Mark Geiger, who allowed them to delay the spot-kick for almost 4 minutes after Carlos Sanchez had wrestled Harry Kane to the ground.