Gareth Southgate’s men have a greater shot at World Cup glory than any Englishmen before them.
Magical realism, born in Latin America, is defined as what happens when a highly-detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe. An English team qualifying for the quarter-finals of a World Cup by winning a penalty shootout certainly qualifies, much like a man suddenly metamorphosing into a giant beetle in a Kafka novel.
Or to borrow a phrase from the spunky Jesse Lingard who put a picture that went viral after the match: 'No Mum, I am not coming home yet."
As Gareth Southgate - a man who looks so British in his sartorially snappy waistcoat that you half-expect him to pull out a pipe and put on a deer-stalker hat at any moment – looked on, England managed something they hadn’t in their inglorious history at World Cup matches – win a damn penalty shootout.
Did that really happen? Because losing shootouts is a very English thing to do, much like giving Hollywood a host of drool-worthy leading men or trying to convince people that colonisation was actually for the benefit of the colonised.
Things looked par on course during the match, first when Colombia equalised at the fag end of injury-time, after spending much of the match hacking down English players and giving the referee a hard time.
Then, when Jordan Henderson, after juggling a ball with nonchalance, a sure way to let people know you’re nervous, missed his penalty, it looked like the same old.
But Jordan Pickford did what no English keeper has done since David Seaman in 1998- stop a shot in the penalty shootout.
Eric Dier, showing perhaps the Tottenham way would emulate the West Ham way of 1966 put the ball in the net against an Arsenal keeper (Ospina) and Southgate joined the lads in exuberant celebration, completely forgetting that he had a dislocated shoulder.
For Southgate, it was personal exorcism a la Chak De’s Kabir Khan of the ghosts of Euro 1996, when his penalty miss knocked out England of the tournament against Germany at Wembley.
Four games in the least experienced side at the World Cup are starting to write their own history, not bogged down by repeated failures of an underachieving nation.
Southgate and the entire squad took a gamble against Belgium, knowing that coming second would give them a much easier draw. It was a high-risk gamble, because on paper Japan present a far less formidable proposition than Colombia, even though the Blue Samurai gave Belgium a might scare.
It wasn’t a pretty site by any stretch of imagination. It was an ill-tempered match and the Colombians in particular looked like they had come for a pub-side hack rather than a football encounter. Till the 80th minute, the Colombians barely attacked England’s goals, preferring to put their boot in the players instead of the balls, and Wilmar Barrios was lucky not to get red card for a head butt.
American referee Mark Geiger struggled to control the game, and England players managed to keep their heads and not fall for the tricks even though Ashley Young in particular, looked like he wanted to pay the Colombians back in the same coin.
Yet at the end of it, England emerged, bruised and battered or as Gareth Southgate said – like a scene from M.A.S.H. – in the dressing room, they get set to face Sweden in Samarra. As of now, the gamble paid off, the second-place finish means England will avoid Brazil, Belgium or France till they reach the final instead having to conquer Sweden and Russia/Croatia.
For now, England fans of all vintages – from Prince William to Premier League fans following the action around the globe – can dare to believe.
Bookmakers have already slashed the odds for England winning making them second favourites at 7/2 (along with France) to win the World Cup, only behind Brazil who have 11/4 odds.
Is it – to borrow the oft-repeated phrase, mostly mockingly – coming home? It’s hard not to believe but Gareth Southgate’s likeable band of merry men, many of whom grew up under his tutelage when he was Under-21 manager, have a greater shot at World Cup glory than any Englishmen before them.
They have avoided, so far, many of the challenges that hampered their predecessors. They don’t have the inflated egos, aren’t part of club cliques, aren’t at war with the press and don’t seem bogged down by history.
As the ever-cheeky dabbing superstar Jesse Lingard wrote on Twitter: “No mum, I’m not coming home. It’s...”
To paraphrase Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine from Casablanca, this feels like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
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 "England v/s Colombia")
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