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Starting a World Cup parenthesis that looks like a brilliant, imaginative and generous child would have drawn, perhaps even penciled, and especially if this child was Russian, the l one of the following four teams will appear a Sunday week in a rare and motley finale: Croatia, Russia, Sweden or England. .
This is Eng-. .
Uh, Eng-. .
It's England
This reality is already well anchored even before the quarter-finals starting Friday, with only two final berths dotted in this quartet. This will mark a departure from the leaning of the World Cup final to highlight the titans, with Spain in 2010 the only finalist since 1966 without several finals of all time, and no one considers the finalists. Spain as an upstart. Twenty-nine of the 40 previous places went to Germany (eight), Brazil (seven), Italy (six), Argentina (five) or the Netherlands (three).
In one way or another, eight in the final, with that one (Brazil) on the caviar side of the parenthesis alongside the golden generation of Belgium, the flamboyant talent of the France and the jurisdiction of all lands of Uruguay. This already leaves enough room to note things like that, when two teams leave for the final in Moscow, Croatia could forge an amazing success for a country of only 27 years and with 4.2 million souls, or l & # 39; England. .
In one of those statistics that seems impossible until its plausibility increases with a careful look, England, the world's most popular sports league, which is also a football league, does not Only reached a semi-final World Cup in 52 years. since 1966, the year he won the World Cup at Wembley Stadium as a host.
If she can beat Sweden on Saturday in the quarter-finals, this eccentric World Cup will bring her a first semi-final since 1990, which was so gaping that, at the time, the mayor of Turin, the late Maria Magnani Noya, expressed an understandable concern of having English fans in her city. She feared not only their talent for violence and other problems of disgust, but also the supporters of the Juventus club, five years after Liverpool fans trampled and killed 39 fans, including 32 Italians, in the disaster. from Heysel Stadium in Brussels, which provoked a five – year ban on English clubs at the European competition
This seems to be forever because England has gained momentum and reputation for disorder and l '. has stifled systematically, decisively and impressively. At the present time, anyone still mentioning England in this vein in conversation deserves to be asked how long his coma lasted. Now, in such a different time, the biggest risk to English fans might come from having a soft spot in your direction after England won against Colombia in the effort that l? had haunted for a generation: the penalties. We are proud of our way of playing, "said manager Gareth Southgate at a FIFA TV interview. Because we are coming in a knockout match, everyone has known our story for ten years with knockout matches. The coolness we did for the match was really great, I thought, and then we had to be incredibly resilient to come back from such a hammer blow to the final whistle. "
the 94th minute, and his only possible mistake came with the word" ten ", which could have been" twenty-five "for more precision.
England played only the first time. one of the previous 20 World Cup finals, his 4-2 win over West Germany in 1966. Sweden played one too In 1958, at home, against Brazil and Pelé, A 17-year-old who scored twice that day and is now 77 and tweeting congratulations to the French prodigy Kylian Mbappe for her two knockout goals against Argentina, Croatia and Russia have not won. played none, but the triumvirate of England, Sweden and Croatia flourished in a corridor of the 1990s.
England had 1990, when it pbaded 3-2 Cameroon, in the quarterfinals in Naples kicks in the 83rd and 105th minutes of Gary Lineker, now known to a new generation as a presenter of television with a natural omnipresence. "Born on Winston Churchill's birthday, Gary Winston Lineker came to England's aid against a force that left them shaking," writes William Gildea in The Post. England lost its semifinal against West Germany to Turin on penalties before the well-behaved fanatics.
Sweden, in a case that became a poster that you could buy in Stockholm later this summer (and probably beyond) United States, played knockout matches at the Cotton Bowl (3-1 win over Saudi Arabia), Stanford Stadium (a 2-2 draw against Romania and a shootout win) and Rose Bowl (a 1-0 defeat by Brazil on Romario's goal in the 80th minute) . "I can not explain it in English," said Swedish Kennet Andersson after the quarterfinal. "I do not think I can explain it in Swedish either."
And Croatia, then only seven years old, ranked third in France in 1998, scouring Romania and Germany before losing a semi-final. La France. As a signal of the geopolitics of the time, the Croatian Robert Prosinecki became the only player to score in World Cup for two countries, having also scored for the largest Yugoslavia, pre-breaking, in 1990. "This that we have demonstrated, "Miroslav M. Blazevic said:" Our very small country, perhaps unknown, is able to show with great elegance what it is capable of and we hope that more people will know our country thanks to this team. "
He learned how to get his players, including 14 in Spain, England, Italy, Germany or France. Two of them, including captain and best player Luka Modric, have won a third consecutive Champions League title with Real Madrid.
All 23, of course, are preparing to play against Russia, with its world ranking No. 70 hidden under Cape Verde, Finland, Albania, Jamaica and Burkina Faso, for n & rsquo; To name a few. Russia won a place here a very long time before everyone else, on December 2, 2010, when 22 FIFA members gave Russia nine votes on the first round and 13 on the second to advance a Spain-Portugal bid.
Even though he emerged by far the easiest group and was beaten there by Uruguay, and even though he benefited both from Mohamed Salah's injury and from the impbadibility of Spain, unprecedented. The location counts. South Korea made an unexpected run to the semi-finals as a co-host in 2002, and noted that the United States reached its first round of 16 in 60 years in 1994. It was a World Cup "Ross-i-ya" chants even during matches not involving Russia, and often followed by short taunts from those who are playing and who are playing.
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