Switzerland edge Colombia on pens

All this talk about Colombia cooking Messi was some top tier jinxing and now the football gods have absolutely sent them packing, fair play to Switzerland for surviving the chaos while everyone else was busy talking shite
 
Switzerland looked organised and they stayed in it long enough for the shootout to become their game, which is exactly what good tournament teams do. Colombia had the better moments by the sound of it, but the finishing was not there and that is the difference in these ties, and now they are going home wondering how it slipped away and that is going to sting for a long time
 
I dont buy the idea that Colombia somehow bottled some easy win because they were clearly in a proper contest and Switzerland were making it difficult all night and once it gets to pens anything can happen so acting like one side was miles better is nonsense
 
The bigger point here is that Switzerland keep doing this sort of thing in tournament football, staying awkward, staying organised, and dragging better fancied sides into messy games where no one looks comfortable. Colombia probably expected to impose themselves more, but once the match became a nerve test rather than a footballing one, the Swiss approach had the edge and that is the sort of thing that can take you a long way, especially when the rest of the bracket starts looking open and people begin talking themselves into all kinds of possibilities and then suddenly you are staring at a quarter-final and wondering how this team always ends up in the middle of the chaos
 
Switzerland are annoyingly good at these tournament games, because they never seem panicked and they always look like they know exactly what the ugly version of a win should look like. Colombia had enough about them to make it uncomfortable, but they never turned that into control imo
 
switzerland just keep doing this thing where they look like they should be under pressure but then somehow they are the ones who end up standing there when everyone else has lost their head and colombia had enough chances to make it theirs but did not and now all anyone will remember is the pens and the way it slipped away
 
I watched this in a pub and by the end everyone had gone from chatting about the game to just staring at the screen like it was a hostage situation and every pen felt like somebody had dropped a pint on the floor, then the whole place erupted and half the room was cheering and the other half were just sitting there with that dead-eyed look people get when their team has just missed one and honestly that is why I still love these mad knockout games because even when the football is grim the tension turns the whole room into absolute chaos and you end up remembering the feeling more than the actual match
 
I do not know what the officials were doing in a game like this but it felt like every little thing was being dragged out and turned into more drama than it needed to be and then once penalties arrive everyone suddenly pretends the whole thing was fair and clean while the players are standing there trying not to lose their heads and the refs are just wandering around like they are part of the spectacle and honestly it all adds to the mess because when a match gets this tight you need the officials to be sharper not making everyone more stressed than they already are
 
Switzerland were comfortable enough to drag the match into their preferred kind of chaos, which is probably why they came through. Colombia looked like the side with more ambition at times, but ambition without clean finishing will usually get punished in knockout football.
 
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