England outclassed Colombia in the Round of 16 of the World Cup to secure a quarterfinal berth where they will take on Sweden on Saturday afternoon.
Even though the Three Lions came out on top, the match was anything but a free-flowing brand of football.
With headbutts to dives inside the penalty box, the match saw everything and only if the referee had ruled the game with a more stricter hand, there could have been a couple of sending offs.
And this emotion has been echoed by England centre-back John Stones who claimed that the Colombia game was one of the weirdest he has ever been part of.
Speaking to the media from England’s World Cup base in Repino, John Stones said: “The game was so strange,
“They are probably the dirtiest team I’ve ever come up against, in respect of when we won the penalty, surrounding the referee, pushing the referee, the headbutt that you’ve all seen, scuffing the penalty spot.
“There were a lot of off-the-ball things you probably haven’t heard about, all the sort of things that you don’t really hear in a football match.
“I think on our behalf, we showed massive character to keep a cool head and not get sucked into their game.
“When you play against a team like that who want to fight, disturb your momentum, you can sometimes get dragged into it and that’s what they want.
“That’s a great sign for the team, to make sure we have that quality of tunnel vision to get out of the game and stick to our game plan. It was a difficult situation to be in and we can look back on it and be very proud of it.”
“Some things I hadn’t even seen, the incident with Raheem and one of their staff – I’ve never seen a game like this before and how they behaved,
“I thought there could have been several red cards in that game from what happened. If the referee sees the headbutt it’s a totally different game.
“There were things that we’ve never experienced before, it was just so surprising to come across those things.”
Stones denied mocking Barrios when Eric Dier netted the decisive penalty as photographs suggested – he insists he was merely shouting in the direction of the England bench – but having the last laugh tasted undeniably sweet.
“To beat them at football – you can’t do anything better than that,” Stones added. “That’ll hurt more than us getting into a scrap with them and they get one of our players sent off.
“At the end of the day they’re back on the plane, we’re still here.”
England are now going to take on Sweden in the quarterfinals and while most people are pinning their hopes on the Three Lions, some feel that Sweden will pose enough threat to Gareth Southgate’s side and will even come out on top.
Read: Diego Maradona’s rant about England’s victory had let to the intervention from FIFA.
Read: Former England international brings down Maradona with one savage tweet after England’s victory over Colombia.
Read: All the stats you need to know before the Sweden vs England quarterfinal of the World Cup.
Read: Former Swedish international absolutely tears down the England side.
Read: The England vs Colombia game was bigger than the British Royal Wedding.
Read: Former England manager gives his prediction for the Sweden vs England game.
