England survive bruising Colombia test to reach World Cup semi-finals
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England fought back from a goal down to beat Colombia 2-1 on Saturday in a bruising encounter and set up a tasty Women's World Cupsemi-final with Australia.
Forward Alessia Russo scored the winner for the European champions just after the hour in front of 75,000 in Sydney to end Colombia's run in the tournament.
Earlier in the day, co-hosts Australia beat France 7-6 in a thrilling penalty shootout in Brisbane to reach the last four for the first time in their history.
The semi-final will be in Sydney on Wednesday.
Colombia, playing in their first quarter-final, took the lead against the run of play through a wonderful dipping effort from the edge of the box by Leicy Santos on 44 minutes.
But England struck back deep in first-half stoppage time when Lauren Hemp pounced on a goalkeeping error by a fumbling Catalina Perez, before Russo sealed the quarter-final in the Lionesses' favour with her cool finish.
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Football«I am buzzing, we are keeping the dream alive,» said Russo.
«We have had to dig deep from the first game, they have so many talented players who can cause you trouble in a second.»
Eyeing up the clash with Australia in front of what will be a hostile crowd, Russo added: «It's exciting, what more do you want?
»I think Colombia had a great fanbase here tonight so we had a taste of it."
Colombia have been one of the best-supported teams at the tournament and their fans dominated at Stadium Australia, their yellow shirts vastly outnumbering England supporters.
Colombia are ranked 25 in the worldto England's four and they were clear underdogs, even if they did beat Germany in the group
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