Colombia and England will fight for the last place in the FIFA World Cup quarter-finals when they meet at Otkrytiye Arena in Moscow on Tuesday. The two teams have last met in a friendly match in 2005, which England won 3-2. The only previous meeting had taken place during the group stage of the 1998 World Cup and England won that match 2-0 with goals from Darren Anderton and David Beckham. Colombia have reached the quarter-finals at the 2014 World Cup, while England have not reached the last eight since 2006.
Colombia had a very shaky start to the 2018 World Cup as they got beaten 2-1 by Japan in their first match, but then they recovered with a convincing 3-0 victory over Poland before securing top spot in Group H with a 1-0 victory over Senegal. Defender Yerri Mina scored in each of the last two matches, while Jonathan Quintero looked like the most in-form attacking player in the Colombian squad. Star player James Rodriguez was unable to contribute to that last win as he limped off during the first half and might be unavailable for Tuesday's match as well. Abel Aguilar is also injured and is expected to miss out.
England had their qualification secure after the first two group matches, they defeated Tunisia 2-1 and Panama 6-1, so head coach Gareth Southgate decided to rest quite a few of his first-choice players during the last match against Belgium. England lost that game 1-0 but it was a rather low-intensity match, even those who did play should be pretty well-rested now. Defender John Stones picked up a knock during the Belgium match and might be unavailable for Tuesday's game.
Probable line-ups:
Colombia: Ospina - Arias, Mina, D. Sanchez, Mojica - C. Sanchez, Uribe - Cuadrado, Quintero, Muriel - Falcao
England: Pickford - Walker, Stones, Maguire - Trippier, Loftus-Cheek, Henderson, Young - Sterling, Lingard - Kane
My prediction: 1-1 after 90 minutes, it should be a tight match between two very careful teams.
Here are the odds for the match at Bet365:
Colombia win - 4.10
Draw - 3.25
England win - 2.10
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