Colombian student at the University of Cambridge reacts to his team’s loss

Juan Sebastian Canavera Herrera, president of the university’s Colombian Society, reflects on a tense night of football – a fiery encounter which saw England go through to the quarter finals on penalties

After the hotly-contested second-round match in Moscow, which finished 1-1 after 120 minutes, England finally won a penalty shootout at a World Cup, beating Colombia 4-3, with only Jordan Henderson missing from the spot.

England led for much of the game, thanks to a Harry Kane penalty, before Barcelona defender Yerry Mina leapt to head in the equaliser in the 93rd minute, which took the match into extra time.

Juan told the Cambridge Independent: “It was a good game and it was not quite clear who was going to win. The last-minute goal of Colombia was quite a big moment.

“I thought the game was finished and I couldn’t believe it was a goal – I had to double check the TV!”

Juan added: “It’s a shame we couldn’t win, but that’s always the thing with penalties, it often comes down to luck.”

On the bad-tempered aspects of a match in which tempers threatened to boil over, Juan said: “I think it was from both teams, players from both sides wanted to continue in the cup. I think it was quite the fault of the referee, who was not managing well the tempers of the players – he was allowing people to be quite aggressive.

“The referee was a bit permissive so you could see that the players were taking the opportunity to do these things, but I think with the goal from England that part of the game changed – our players stopped trying to be aggressive and tried to play more and tried to get the goal.”