The Three Lions of England who just broke a jinx winning penalty shoot outs faces yet another jinx of surviving quarter final matches.
They never progressed beyond this stage when they beat Cameroon in R16 in 1990. The last time they English team appeared in the quarters they lost on penalties to Portugal.
Samara Arena, venue of the match between the Three Lions who Nigerian fans prefer to call ‘Three kittens’, will witness a lot of English fans who are passionate about football. England was the world capital of soccer hooliganism until the 70s when FIFA roared the country into surrender.
England is meeting old foes, Sweden for the 25th time but available statistics show 8 wins for England, 7 for Sweden and 9 draws. In the two times they traded tackles at the world cup, they were draws of 1-1 in 2002 and 2-2 in 2006 all in group stages. Last time they met was at 2012 Euro championship and England ran away with a 3-2 victory.
A check on prediction voting shows a handsome 51% voted for an English victory 20% says it’s gonna be a Swedish win while 29% feels the winner will emerge from penalty shootouts. Disgraced Argentine star, Diego Maradona will not take that stuff. He described England’s victory against Columbia in R16 as “monumental robbery”.
Sweden lives on old commendation as they have been in 5 quarters in the world cup and only lost to Germany in 1934. They appeared in the Semis in 1938, 1958 and 1994 and that was before democracy returned to Nigeria in 1999.
On current ratings, statistics show that England is just a ‘shine shine bobo’ who used Panama to shine scoring 6 goals two of which were penalties. Panama’s scored against them. They beat Tunisia 2-1 and lost to Belgium 0-1 before Columbia got the1-1 equalizer through Mina 90+3’ and The Lions almost got lost in the forest thicket beating Columbia 4-3 on penalties. They were simply lucky.
Harry Kane has 6 goals as the tournament highest scorer but there are Stones with two goals, Raheem Sterling the short but dangerous winger, Young folks like Lingard and Rashford with Pickford in goal who has leaked 4 goals apart from penalty shoot-out. That might be the channel of Sweden’s victory.
Sweden defense is strong looking like steel fence. Out of four countries they have faced, only Germany scored 2 goals against them. The pattern of the scoring could be the key for England’s win. Reus scored 45+3’ and Toni Kroos got the winner in that 2-1 victory in 90+5’.
That tells us Sweden is like the Super Eagles of Nigeria that loses concentration at dying moments of almost all their matches. Injury time in the first half, and injury time in the second half, hmmm. Think about it. Sweden got a penalty to defeat Korea and spanked Mexico neatly 3-0 before stopping the Swiss team 1-0 in R16. Granqvist is highest scorer of the team scoring two penalties against Korea and against Mexico. Larsen their hero is yet to score.
Given the tough defense and the sleekly Swedish movements coupled with a panicky English defense, Sweden should win within regulation time. Did you notice that the VAR was not referred to even once in the England v Columbia match even when players agitated?
It is expected that Russians will fill 0ver 75% space of the 48,000 capacity Fisht Stadium in Sochi built in 2014 for the summer Olympics when Russia and Croatia clash Saturday 1900 WAT. From the books and on current form, Croatia should cost into the semis without sweat, the high goals of Russia notwithstanding.
Russia dazed a perennial Saudi soccer weakling 5-0 and slammed a Moh Sallah less Egypt 3-1 but Uruguay cut them to size in their backyard 3 nil. The stadium was turned to a grave yard as the Russian party was K. I. V. a term common to civil service treatment of files keeping in view action of pending decisions.
Russia was super lucky to escape the raid of the power packed Spaniards. Spain got an own goal gift in 12’ and Dzyuba scored the equalizer via penalty in 41’/ It was a rough match filled in with protests. Any team that will have to beat hosts Russia will do it neatly from shots outside box 18.Russia goalkeeper is used to drop balls from faulty catches and rebounds kick will give smart victory.
Russia had W3, L1, 9GF, GA5 and GD+4. Russia is reaching their first quarters since the country broke in 1990. They were in the quarters 4 times between 1958-1970. Russia and Croatia had met three times before in the qualifiers each time ended goalless but at the Euro 2008 Croatia won. In 2015 during a friendly match in November of 2015 at Rostov Stadium, now one of the venues of the world cup, Croatia won 3-1.
Even soccer pundits did not give the match to Russia, 24% said Russia would win, 44% gives it to Croatia and a 32% say the winner will emerge via penalties. Some five hosts had progressed into the semis, Italy (1990); France (1998); South Korea (2002); Germany (2006) and Brazil (2014).
Croatia emerge leaders in group D where Super Eagles played. They first humbled Nigeria that both the psychic pig and cat said would reach the semis, 2-0 where Etebo scored an own goal. The team stunned the Anaconda Argentina pocketing irrepressible Lionel Messi in a 3-0 bashing. They went resting major players and narrowly beat Iceland 2-1 before playing 1-1 with Denmark and emerging from penalty shoot-out 3-2. They have GF8, GA2 and GD+6.
They conceded 1 goal each in two matches one of them the penalty scored by Siguosson of Iceland. Croatia has a solid defense which will be difficult for a wingless Russia to penetrate.
Croatia has improved on their scoring ability. They scored as many goals in this their Russia 2018 4 matches than they scored in the 6 games played in their two world cup appearances of 2006 and 2014. Some soccer analysts are already peeping into a Croatia v Sweden semi. I think so myself but we have to get to the bridge before we cross it.
STOP PRESS.
There is this thoughtful piece on the quarter final pairing and the dates circulating on the social media.
Match 1:
France has 6 letters & Uruguay has 7 letters.
Match 2
Brazil has 6 letters & Belgium has 7 letters.
Match 3
Sweden has 6 letters & England has 7 letters.
Match 4
Russia has 6 letters & Croatia has 7 letters.
Dates of matches: 6 & 7 July: 6vs 7.
I was told 7 is a complete number. So the winner will emerge from nations with 7 letters. Any thought?