It was a night of conflicting emotions. England took their fans on a familiar journey, one that I have written about before. You know it by now, hope becomes joy and this leads to an expectation that is swiftly replaced by disappointment and sadness. Only this time it was different. The morning after the night before it is still hard to process exactly what happened. After the drama had concluded, we drunkenly picked over the match but could reach no consensus. England had played well and controlled the game or England had played poorly and been distracted by the Columbian gamesmanship. Choose your opinion from those two or a multitude of others and you are probably not far from correct. What is undeniable though is that Gareth Southgate's team broke free from the chains of history.

England celebrate victory in penalty shootout... not a very productive google image search.

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Everybody knows what history I am talking about. It is a tale of woe that stretches back twenty-eight years and if you pick up a newspaper today you can read all about it. Before last night England had been involved in seven penalty shootouts with just one solitary success. That victory against Spain in Euro '96 came just a few days before what is perhaps the most painful defeat of all. When Gareth Southgate missed from the spot, against Germany at Wembley in June 1996, we did not know what would follow over the next twenty years. In 1996 there was hope, yesterday night there was none, surely we were done for. Any England watcher over the age of thirty knows to expect nothing but defeat if we get to the dreaded penalties.

When Jordan Henderson (honest and hard working, it is always the nice guys) missed last night we all assumed that the game was up. Hendo (as I am legally required to refer to him) had been one of England's better players in the match, no matter, penalties do not respect performance they have a law of their own, individuals are punished remorselessly and left to suffer the agony forever. Chris Waddle, Stuart Pearce, Paul Ince, David Batty, Southgate himself; how often when they lie in bed at night do their defining moments come back to haunt them? However this time Henderson was reprieved, seconds after his own penalty was saved, Mateus Uribe hit the underside of the crossbar with his own. One solitary inch we reckon. If that penalty kick is one inch lower then the ball deflects over the line and England are almost certainly out of the World Cup. In sport, it is the finest of margins that separate the winners and losers.

Eric Dier kept his nerve under incredible pressure to slot England into the last eight.

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What happened next will live long in the memory, the calmness of Kieren Trippier to level it up and then that save from Jordan Pickford to deny Carlos Bacca. The final action was left to Eric Dier, holding his nerve and slotting England in the quarter-final. We never did reach agreement on whether England deserved to go through. For my part, Gareth Southgate was perhaps guilty of sitting on his one-nil lead for too long and hoping it would be enough. Deli Alli didn't look right and could have been substituted earlier. Ashley Young was limping around for five minutes before being replaced. Still, the manager and the team will learn lessons from this match. Gareth Southgate said it best of all though, 'we don't have to be bowed by the pressure of the past.'

Jordan Pickford coming of age in Moscow last night.

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This is a different England team. Most of this team weren't born in 1990 and there are even a few who drew their first breaths after 1998. It is time to move forward, today is the only day that matters and England are in the quarter-final.