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.
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.
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.
RE: the penalties, I remember another recent interview with Southgate where he said we always rush when we get to the penalty spot yet actually the players have as long as they want to compose themselves before hitting the ball
With our shootout yesterday you could clearly see that was the case from the team whenever they stepped forward
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.
RE: the penalties, I remember another recent interview with Southgate where he said we always rush when we get to the penalty spot yet actually the players have as long as they want to compose themselves before hitting the ball
With our shootout yesterday you could clearly see that was the case from the team whenever they stepped forward
Believe they also instructed Pickford to bring the ball to the taker too so they didn’t have to go hunting for it.
A night like tonight is where you see the advantage of having a calm thoughtful manager. Can you imagine Harry Redknapp giving a seconds thought to a detail like that?
I’m hoping that the confidence and momentum in that squad will give us a massive boost over Sweden. I can’t emphasise how big a thing it will be for the team to have got through via a penalty shoot out after conceding an injury time equaliser.
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.
RE: the penalties, I remember another recent interview with Southgate where he said we always rush when we get to the penalty spot yet actually the players have as long as they want to compose themselves before hitting the ball
With our shootout yesterday you could clearly see that was the case from the team whenever they stepped forward
Believe they also instructed Pickford to bring the ball to the taker too so they didn’t have to go hunting for it.
A night like tonight is where you see the advantage of having a calm thoughtful manager. Can you imagine Harry Redknapp giving a seconds thought to a detail like that?
I noticed that as well. Players supporting each other, truly impressive.
Just noticed in a clip of the team celebrations immediately after Dier scoring the winning pen as he made a bee line for Pickford; dives towards him and missed! Good job he didn't do that with his pen .
Pleased for the lad who gets a bit of stick on here despite his family connections with CAFC. Well done Eric!
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.
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.
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.
Yep it looked like Ospina had a touch of the Hans Segers pull the hand away about him with that winning penalty
What are Dier’s family connections with Charlton , apart from the name being an anagram of us as a club under Roland
From wiki:
Dier is the grandson of Ted Croker, a former secretary of The Football Association and president of Cheltenham Town, and great-nephew of Peter Croker, who both played professionally for Charlton Athletic.
Just noticed in a clip of the team celebrations immediately after Dier scoring the winning pen as he made a bee line for Pickford; dives towards him and missed! Good job he didn't do that with his pen .
Pleased for the lad who gets a bit of stick on here despite his family connections with CAFC. Well done Eric!
Family connections with CAFC mean nothing if you can't do the basics in a game. He's a donkey. But a donkey that scored a decent Penner.
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.
True. I said after Colombia buried their first 3 penalties that i can't remember a side ever missing a penalty against us! Then they go and miss both their next 2.
Just noticed in a clip of the team celebrations immediately after Dier scoring the winning pen as he made a bee line for Pickford; dives towards him and missed! Good job he didn't do that with his pen .
Pleased for the lad who gets a bit of stick on here despite his family connections with CAFC. Well done Eric!
Family connections with CAFC mean nothing if you can't do the basics in a game. He's a donkey. But a donkey that scored a decent Penner.
He speaks highly of you as well Daz.
He's my link with the club and I'm bigging him up for it ok
Somewhat unbelievably, my pal in Dusseldorf tells me that most Germans are now rooting for England.
My wife has a German friend just moved to Bristol. He said he didn't understand why so many people in the pub were cheering when Germany went out. He said nobody in Germany cheers when England lose! Funny.
Just noticed in a clip of the team celebrations immediately after Dier scoring the winning pen as he made a bee line for Pickford; dives towards him and missed! Good job he didn't do that with his pen .
Pleased for the lad who gets a bit of stick on here despite his family connections with CAFC. Well done Eric!
Family connections with CAFC mean nothing if you can't do the basics in a game. He's a donkey. But a donkey that scored a decent Penner.
He speaks highly of you as well Daz.
He's my link with the club and I'm bigging him up for it ok
It's okay, I used to big him up and question why he wasn't getting his chance... Now he is.
That penalty aside, surely no one can say he had a good game?
Somewhat unbelievably, my pal in Dusseldorf tells me that most Germans are now rooting for England.
Not really, I believe the rivalry is all one sided. They always beat us so why would they have a downer on us. I think their main rivalry is with The Netherlands.
Somewhat unbelievably, my pal in Dusseldorf tells me that most Germans are now rooting for England.
My wife has a German friend just moved to Bristol. He said he didn't understand why so many people in the pub were cheering when Germany went out. He said nobody in Germany cheers when England lose! Funny.
Because they always beat us and probably see us as an insignificant little brother.
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.
Columbia looked dangerous when they started playing football
It was a very one sided stadium, there were a lot of Columbians there, indeed Europeans have generally been heavily out numbered in the crowd this tournament, the Putin and Russian Hooligan factors clearly putting people off, whereas in other parts of the world it doesn't seem to have made any impact
For all the warnings beforehand, I haven't heard of a single incident of violence on foreign spectators during the World Cup
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.
Quite. I think the saying goes: "If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there'd be no need for tinkers" or something. It's always possible to look at a tiny part of a game in isolation and say it was lucky/unlucky, but you've got to look at the whole picture. For example were we unlucky that Trippier only managed to head their goal onto the inner-underside of the bar? If only it had bounced out! Were we unlucky that Pickford got enough on his wondersave to turn it behind for the fateful corner - if he'd got less on it, it might have hit the bar/post and bounced to safety! Were we lucky when our defender (can't remember who) touched a ball behind and the ref gave a goal kick? Were we lucky that when Kane took his pen (in normal time) Ospina waved his leg at the ball and nearly got to it? If he'd kept it out, who knows what would've happened? Maybe we were lucky/unlucky to greater or lesser degrees in each case, but as the cliché says - these things even themselves out over time. At the end of the day, we scored the same number of goals as them, then we put more penalties away than they did. So we won. You take your good and bad fortune on your journey and you make of it what you will.
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.
I suspect many people won't even know what serendipitous means, let alone call the win that! :-)
Comments
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.
With our shootout yesterday you could clearly see that was the case from the team whenever they stepped forward
A night like tonight is where you see the advantage of having a calm thoughtful manager. Can you imagine Harry Redknapp giving a seconds thought to a detail like that?
I’m hoping that the confidence and momentum in that squad will give us a massive boost over Sweden. I can’t emphasise how big a thing it will be for the team to have got through via a penalty shoot out after conceding an injury time equaliser.
Saturday is massive.
Pleased for the lad who gets a bit of stick on here despite his family connections with CAFC. Well done Eric!
Dier is the grandson of Ted Croker, a former secretary of The Football Association and president of Cheltenham Town, and great-nephew of Peter Croker, who both played professionally for Charlton Athletic.
He's my link with the club and I'm bigging him up for it ok
That penalty aside, surely no one can say he had a good game?
It's as if we don't live up to the extremes that some would have the world believe we adhere to.
It was a very one sided stadium, there were a lot of Columbians there, indeed Europeans have generally been heavily out numbered in the crowd this tournament, the Putin and Russian Hooligan factors clearly putting people off, whereas in other parts of the world it doesn't seem to have made any impact
For all the warnings beforehand, I haven't heard of a single incident of violence on foreign spectators during the World Cup
"If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there'd be no need for tinkers" or something.
It's always possible to look at a tiny part of a game in isolation and say it was lucky/unlucky, but you've got to look at the whole picture.
For example were we unlucky that Trippier only managed to head their goal onto the inner-underside of the bar? If only it had bounced out! Were we unlucky that Pickford got enough on his wondersave to turn it behind for the fateful corner - if he'd got less on it, it might have hit the bar/post and bounced to safety! Were we lucky when our defender (can't remember who) touched a ball behind and the ref gave a goal kick? Were we lucky that when Kane took his pen (in normal time) Ospina waved his leg at the ball and nearly got to it? If he'd kept it out, who knows what would've happened?
Maybe we were lucky/unlucky to greater or lesser degrees in each case, but as the cliché says - these things even themselves out over time.
At the end of the day, we scored the same number of goals as them, then we put more penalties away than they did. So we won. You take your good and bad fortune on your journey and you make of it what you will.