Simon Collings looks at England's chances ahead of Colombia game

Evening Standard

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00:00 Hello and welcome to Sydney where you join me outside Stadium Australia ahead of England versus Columbia in the World Cup quarterfinals tomorrow night.

00:09 The excitement in the city is building up to this one and that's largely because there is a big Colombian population here in Sydney, around 10-11,000 people.

00:16 There have been even more Colombians who have flown over for the tournament and if you've been in Sydney this week in any of the bars,

00:21 particularly when Columbia were playing their last 16 game, you know how big a support they're going to have tomorrow night.

00:26 75,000 expected here and I would suspect it will be very much a sea of yellow for England.

00:32 We've heard from Mary Erbs and Serena Beegman in the press conference this evening and both of them in a pretty strong defiant move, particularly Mary Erbs.

00:39 I think she's shown herself to be a leader in this squad, she's a great talker and the way she spoke ahead of this game sort of sent out a message that England feel the best is yet to come.

00:48 That's literally what Mary said and I think for them that is the feeling they've taken from these first few games because they've had difficult performances.

00:55 They haven't really sparkled but they've found a way to win in every match and what Erbs was trying to stress to all of us there in the media,

01:01 and it was a packed press conference room, was that in tournament football it's the results that matter.

01:06 No one remembers at the end how well did that team play.

01:09 They look at the name on the trophy and for England that's what I think they're going to take forward into this quarterfinal.

01:13 Even against Nigeria, you look at that game when they were down to 10 players, they were struggling, their grit, their resilience, their strength got them through

01:19 and they've made it this far without it hitting top gear. So I think when they go forward they'll take that as a big positive,

01:25 that they can get better, they can improve.

01:27 Against a Colombia team who we shouldn't really underestimate, I know the world rankings make it look like it should be a comfortable win for England,

01:34 it probably won't be. Just like that Nigeria game, they punched well above their weight.

01:38 Some fantastic players on show, Linda Carcedo, 18 years old, starring for Real Madrid, starring for Colombia at this tournament and it's all set up for a brilliant game tomorrow night.

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