"Overall it was a terrific performance against a side who can cause
you problems, but we nullified that," England coach Glenn Hoddle said.
England finished second behind Romania in
Group G and will meet old foe Argentina in Saint-Etienne for a place in the
quarterfinals.
The Colombians go home early for the second time in a row. Their
disastrous 1994 performance led to the shooting death of Andres Escobar,
who scored an own goal in a loss to the United
States and was gunned down in his hometown of Medellin a few days
later.
Colombia was the only Latin American team not to advance this
year.
If it hadn't been for acrobatic goalkeeper Farid Mondragon, the
Colombians would have lost by an embarrassing margin.
After making at least seven second-half saves, Mondragon left the
field in tears, consoled by his colleagues and England goalkeeper David
Seaman.
"If we had taken our chances we would have won by four or five,"
Hoddle said. "It was a great performance from them. They were positive in
the room, so I did not really expect any other result. All our players got
8-plus out of 10 tonight. We passed the ball extremely well and we defended
the game well."
Colombia, meanwhile, never got untracked.
"England was the better team tonight, especially in terms of their
attack," said Colombian coach Hernan Gomez. "Colombia didn't have much
firepower tonight, even when we changed the tactics. We weren't able to
open up spaces and England was also very effective in shutting down our
play."
On the first goal, the Colombian defense struggled to clear a right
-wing cross and the ball dropped to the unmarked Anderton just inside the
penalty area. He hammered the ball into the top of the net from an acute
angle with Mondragon powerless.
"It may not have been one of my best goals, but it was the sweetest,"
Anderton said. "It was a great result for all of us tonight, but I always
thought we would do well. This was a massive game."
The second goal came in the 29th minute in spectacular style.
Paul Ince was brought down 30 yards from goal and Beckham produced one
of his specialty free kicks, curling the ball around the defensive wall
past the despairing dive of Mondragon and inside the post.
Lineups
England: David Seaman; Gary Neville, Tony Adams, Sol Campbell;
Darren Anderton (Robert Lee, 80th), David Beckham, Paul Ince (David Batty,
83rd), Paul Scholes (Steve McManaman, 74th), Graeme Le Saux; Alan Shearer,
Michael Owen.
Colombia: Farid Mondragn; Everth Palacios, Jorge Bermudez,
Wilmer Cabrera, Antonio Moreno; Mauricio Serna (Victor Aristizabal, 46th),
Harold Lozano, Carlos Valderrama, Freddy Rincon; Anthony De Avila (Hamilton
Ricard, 46th) Leider Preciado (Adolfo Valencia, 46th).
Referee: Arturo Brizio, Mexico.
HREF="/soccer/world/events/1998/worldcup/teams/argentina">Argentina.
Ince (above) was brought down 30 yards from goal to pass the ball to Beckham who produced one of his specialty free kicks 
