Davinson Sánchez looked to the heavens. Cucho Hernández trudged back to his teammates. By the end, the pair’s penalty misses sent the Colombian team to the grass in anguish as Switzerland danced in front of their supporters, nearly alone in a sea of yellow. Switzerland had prevailed on penalties, 4-3, Ruben Vargas’s decider bringing an emotional end to more than two hours of tense, tentative, and ludicrously goal-free football in the World Cup last 16.
Switzerland advance to the quarter-finals for the first time since 1954, when that stage was the first in the knockout round of a Swiss-hosted tournament featuring a total of 16 teams. They will face a tall task to better that result, facing Lionel Messi and Argentina in Kansas City in four days’ time.
“I think I need another couple of hours or days to process what just happened,” a delighted Switzerland manager Murat Yakin said after the match. “This is a dream.”
Yakin repeatedly said the match had gone exactly to plan. If that is true, that plan must have consisted solely of finer points. This was more chess game than football match, with each team probing and prodding equally for more than 120 minutes, each sorely missing a finishing touch. Possession remained even. Midfields took turns controlling proceedings, but only for minutes at a time. Sometimes those midfields were cut out entirely as long balls were traded to test capable backlines. The occasion lacked fireworks, but there was plenty of drama at the end.
“We were aware that this was going to be a tactical, tight match,” Colombia manager Néstor Lorenzo said. “Of course, we should have scored a goal.”
The Guardian
