Football’s coming home (to Chelsea) (probably)

Football’s continuing to come home as England have reached the semifinals of the World Cup for the first time since 1990 with a solid 2-0 win over Sweden.

It wasn’t a perfect performance, quite sluggish and unimaginative at times, even, but the Three Lions won the aerial battle and headed goals from the adorable Harry Maguire and less adorable but equally excellent Dele Alli, plus a few good saves from Jordan “Too $hort” Pickford, were enough to see them into the final four. They will play the winner of Russia and Croatia, which is set to kick-off shortly.

While neither Ruben Loftus-Cheek nor Gary Cahill played for England today, they now join France duo N’Golo Kanté and Olivier Giroud and Belgium trio Eden Hazard, Thibaut Courtois, and Michy Batshuayi in the semifinals. France will play Belgium on Tuesday while England will take on (probably) Croatia on Wednesday.

What that means is that unless Croatia win the World Cup, Chelsea are guaranteed to have at least two Champions of the World. (Sure, Russia could win it, too. We might have to quickly complete the signing of Aleksandr Golovin in that case.)

For England, Italia ‘90 ended in big tears. How will Russia ‘18 end for Kane & Co?