England’s midfielder Eric Dier said he felt calm scoring the decisive penalty shot on Tuesday night, which saw his team winning over Colombia and advancing to the quarterfinals of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.
Team England completed a list of the quarterfinalists at the 2018 FIFA World Cup after a 4-3 penalty shootout win over Colombia at the Spartak Arena in Moscow on July 3 following 1-1 draw in the main time of the closing match in the round of Last 16.
Asked after the match what were his thoughts about as he was lined up for a penalty shot, the 24-year-old Tottenham Spur FC player said “I don’t know what to think about, to be honest,”
“While you wait to take it, you are nervous. But once I was out, I was quite calm,” Dier, who scored the decisive goal of his team’s game against the Colombian squad, said.
England is now set to play in the quarterfinals of the world championship against Sweden in the city of Samara on July 7. The Swedish squad managed to edge Switzerland 1-0 in another Last 16 match, played earlier on July 3 in Saint Petersburg.
In all, 32 national football teams entered the 2018 FIFA World Cup and only 16 of them proceeded to the knockout phase after the group stage, which kicked off on June 14 and ended on June 28.
The national teams, which cleared the round of Last 16, are hosts Russia, Croatia, Uruguay, France, Brazil, Belgium, Sweden and England.
Russia is staging its first-ever FIFA World Cup, which kicked off in Moscow with a spectacular opening show at the Luzhniki Stadium on the night of June 14.
The country selected 11 host cities to be the venues for the matches of the 2018 World Cup and they are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Samara.