After England broke its penalty curse against Colombia, coach Gareth Southgate and the Three Lions are rejuvenated with a new hope. Though England goes against Sweden on Saturday at the Samara Stadium in Russia, there is a question that begs itself to be echoed in the ears of all who cheer for England:
Meet Leon the Chameleon. Throughout the World Cup he will be predicting matches doing the thing he does best: eating crickets. Here he chooses between England and Sweden for this quarterfinal matchup.
LEON LIKES: England
England
Pickford; Maguire, Stones, Walker, Trippier, Rose; Henderson, Loftus-Cheek, Lingard; Sterling, Kane
Sweden
Olsen; Krafth, Lindelof, Granqvist, Augustinsson; Claesson, Larsson, Ekdal, Forsberg; Toinoven, Berg
Historians call the Swinging Sixties the decade that shook Britain. England and its commonwealth had only just begun a greater recovery period after a post-WWII world, the nation’s youth was a rejuvenated generation of a high-spirited character and British rock was redefining music in a way never before seen in history.
All the conditions were met for a recently Blitzkrieged nation to thrive once again — and the very same stars were aligned in the world of the beautiful game.
Jordan Pickford is the man of the hour. An incredible save during normal time (that funnily enough was not replayed on the live broadcast) and stopping Carlos Bacca’s penalty helped seal the Three Lions passage into a quarterfinal matchup against Sweden.
Insane that this didn’t even get a replay, take a bow Jordan Pickford pic.twitter.com/SooSLWBgGy
It’s coming home. At least that’s what just about every English person is saying right now. Laugh at them if you want, but based off how this England side is playing right now, it might actually be coming home.
Many fans would associate England with being one of the most underwhelming sides on the international stage. In terms of World Cup performance, England made the quarterfinals in 2006, followed that up with a Round of 16 finish in 2010 and then in 2014, they failed to make it out of the group stage.
We’re still trying to figure out if England is any good or if Sweden is as good as its results suggest. Our World Cup 2018 quarterfinal England vs Sweden prediction for their match on Saturday in Samara takes into account what both teams have and have not accomplished so far, as a team that’s beaten up on some really bad teams will go head-to-head with a team that made it through the Group of Death.
On Tuesday we saw the last two games of the Round of 16 and Sweden and England were able to advance over Switzerland and Colombia, respectively. In short, Sweden was boring and defensive as usual, and England fans were nervous as hell the whole game, so you know there were plenty of great World Cup tweets.
It was the outcome England dreaded most: After going out on penalties in ’90, ’98 and ’06, it was penalties again in '18 — this time in the Round of 16 against Colombia. What’s more, after conceding a 92nd minute equalizer to Yerry Mina, you could imagine that English spirits weren’t exactly flying high.