England’s penalty shoot-out heroes Jordan Pickford and Eric Dier believe the squad’s spirit and mentality played the biggest part in their victory over Colombia.
The Three Lions looked to be heading into the quarter final after Harry Kane’s penalty in the second half, until a stoppage time goal from Yerry Mina took the game to extra time.
And as Pickford saved Carlos Bacca’s spot-kick, it was left to Dier to score and send the Three Lions into Saturday’s quarter final with Sweden.
Read their thoughts on the game below.
Eric Dier
"It was a nervous one, I've never been in this situation before but I felt I had to score after I missed that header at the end, but I'm thankful I scored.
"Jordan’s a fantastic goalkeeper with a fantastic attitude and he deserves everything.
"He was fantastic in the shoot-out and he's been brilliant in training with them too, so he's just taken it into the game.
"To get knocked down at the end with that goal like we did, it's difficult to come back from that but we were ready for it and we knew what we had to do.
"We stayed calm and stuck to our plan throughout extra time and if it goes to penalties, it goes to penalties and we were ready for that.”
Jordan Pickford
"We did our research on them with Marge [Martyn Margetson] and Falcao was really the only one who didn't go his way.
"But I've got power and agility and I don't care if I'm not the biggest keeper, but I have that power and agility to get around the goal and I'm very good at it.
"It's about getting there, making the save and being in the moment and I was.
"I thought the late save [from Uribe] was enough, it was a great strike and I got a good hand to it. But unfortunately they scored and we had to reset our mindset and mentality.
"We knew we had this game though and if it went to penalties, we were capable of winning.”
