Joe Carroll: Bettors would have laid it on heavily on Kane doing the double
You could imagine that if Gareth Southgate had brought his team for a few limbering exercises last Saturday morning, his players would have had an extra pep in their step doing the sprints and jumping that bit higher doing the leap-frogs, if indeed that ancient training ground practice is part of their regime.
A reaction perhaps of knowing the favs for the World Cup were now also-rans.
Neymar and his tap-dancing Brazilian colleagues had been shocked by Croatia the night before, and second in the betting, Argentina, while still standing, had to go the full distance, and beyond, to overcome Holland.
The ‘wait till you see, England are going to win it’ brigade would have been shouting with louder voices. France, however, still had to be beaten.
We all know now it didn’t happen. England, arguably at their best in the tournament, were let down by their penalty-taking. It wasn’t happening for the first time in a major.
But, whereas before there were a few who couldn’t find the sweet spot, this time there was just one player out of focus at just the wrong time.
On a day when he joined Wayne Rooney at the top of the England scoring chart and stood a real chance of being involved in a World Cup semi-final, Harry Kane blasted over the bar.
He was facing Hugo Lloris, and having got the better of his Spurs colleague in the same situation 30 minutes earlier, betting men would have been laying it on with shovels on him bringing up the double.
It was one of the final chapters in a great game, which, despite his best efforts to do so, wasn’t spoiled by the Brazilian referee.
Many at the venue where I watched the game cheered when the final whistle sounded, happy that France had scraped home, winning by two goals to one; but the sight of the young Brit crying in the crowd, took the smile off some faces, even if it didn’t melt hearts.
The quartet for the semi-finals comprises two pre-competition leading fancies, a history maker and, believe it or not, one that Inside Track ear-marked before the starting-gate opened.
Croatia were given the ‘likely outsider’ tag, but as said before, weren’t supported at 50/1. It was they who saw off Brazil last Friday.
Morocco are the first from Africa to make the last four, their routing of Spain from the penalty-spot just one of the competition’s great surprises.
Others were Germany going out at the group stage, and, need it be said by IT, Belgium also heading home before it got to the knock-out stage.
Argentina, Messi and all, haven’t been that good making it this far; but aside from a defeat for their ‘B’ team by Tunisia in the preliminaries, France have been near faultless.
And as Mbappe and his team make progress, I’m thinking of what’s ahead for the Republic of Ireland. Stephen Kenny’s team are in the same group as Les Bleus for the European Championship beginning next March.
While it would be a huge attraction to have the current holders of the World Cup – and potential successive winners – coming to The Aviva, Ireland making the concluding stages of the competition would almost certainly have to be achieved with the loss of six points.