England-Sweden is the quarter-final that came out of the last day of the round of 2018, which completes the Russia 2006 draw. The English only beat Colombia on penalties, after taking the lead with the usual Kane in regulation time and having suffered an equalizer in injury time from Mina. The national team led by Southgate also had a bad time during the series of penalties, falling behind following Henderson's missed penalty, but then the cross from Uribe's shot and a save by Pickworth from Bacca's last penalty sent the English side quarter-finals, where they had been missing since the 2014 World Cup: on that occasion they lost, again on penalties, against Portugal, while in XNUMX they were eliminated together with Italy in the initial group (Uruguay and Costa Rica passed by surprise). British who also break the curse of penalties: they were veterans, between the World Cup and European Championships, from six consecutive eliminations on penalties.
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So England again in the top eight, and on Saturday in the last scheduled quarter-final they will face Sweden, which continues its surprising journey, which began last November by eliminating Italy in the World Cup qualifying playoffs: the Scandinavians managed to top a group with Germany and Mexico and today in the round of 1 they overcame Switzerland, who remain so far the only team to have scored a goal against Brazil. But against the Swedes Petkovic's men didn't find as much luck and it ended 0-0 for Sweden: just enough to go through. The other quarter-final in that part of the draw is Croatia-Russia: so it's official, at least one finalist will be a European team. Over there, on the other hand, the national teams considered stronger on paper remain in the running, especially France and Brazil who should clash in the semifinals if they are able to get the better of Uruguay (without Cavani) and Belgium respectively, fresh from a crazy match against Japan in the round of 2, with a comeback from 3-2 and a 94-XNUMX victory in the XNUMXth minute.
Quarterfinals schedule: France-Uruguay at 16pm and Brazil-Belgium at 20pm on Friday; on Saturday it's Sweden-England at 16pm and Russia-Croatia at 20pm.
