{"id":17229,"date":"2018-07-07T12:46:20","date_gmt":"2018-07-07T16:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonsoccer.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=17229"},"modified":"2018-07-07T12:46:20","modified_gmt":"2018-07-07T16:46:20","slug":"england-three-lions-2018-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2018\/07\/07\/england-three-lions-2018-world-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweden 0-2 England: The Three Lions sets in the semifinal for the first time in 28 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>SAMARA, Russia (June 7, 2018) &#8211;<\/strong> For the first time since 1990, England has reached a World Cup semifinal after defeating Sweden 2-0 without too much effort.<\/p>\n<h2>The Three Lions sets in the semifinal for the first time in 28 years<\/h2>\n<p>Two header goals sealed the deal for the English with Harry Maguire opener in the 30th minute and Dele Ali goal in the 58th was enough to keep the country&#8217;s dream alive.<\/p>\n<p>The World Cup golden boot leader Harry Kane didn&#8217;t even shot on target, that proved the dominance the Three Lions Had, and when they needed a hero the goalkeeper Jordan Pickford showed up with remarkable two saves.<\/p>\n<h3>Golden Generation<\/h3>\n<p>It is the third time in England history they advance to the World Cup semifinals, having won in 1966 and ending\u00a0up fourth in 1990.<\/p>\n<p>But this generation is on their way to becoming champions, that&#8217;s their ultimate goal, and they&#8217;re doing what David Beckham, Michael Carrick, Michael Owen, Steven Gerard, Franck Lampard, Paul Scholes, and Rio Ferdinand could not do it.<\/p>\n<p>Not too many people trusted them before the beginning of the tournament, but these young men are playing without any fear and the semifinals await them.<\/p>\n<h3>Kane&#8217;s mission<\/h3>\n<p>England captain Harry Kane is himself on a mission, he seems to be more inspired after a video that went viral in the social media about a young <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LiamHerbert_\/status\/1014837963275079681\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Englishman named Ben<\/a> who suffered a\u00a0brain tumor and ask The Three Lions to win the World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hi Ben, I&#8217;ve seen your video and you are an inspiration. Carry on fighting and we&#8217;ll do everything we can on Saturday to keep a smile on your face!,&#8221; Kane tweeted on his personal account as the hashtag\u00a0<a class=\"twitter-hashtag pretty-link js-nav\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/BensWorldCup?src=hash\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><s>#<\/s><b>BensWorldCup<\/b><\/a>\u00a0became viral.<\/p>\n<p>England has won only one World Cup trophy in its history in 1966, and Kane wants to emulate those days of glory for Ben.<\/p>\n<h3>Swedish proud<\/h3>\n<p>Sweden has a tournament that anyone expected, yet, almost no one really thought they will qualify for the World Cup in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>They left behind the Netherlands and Italy in the European World Cup qualifiers and they\u00a0finished first in the Group F.<\/p>\n<p>Sweden play the quarter-finals for the first time since 1994 when they ended up third in that tournament; moreover, they were unable to reach their fourth semifinal in history and his best result in a World Cup competition was the second place in 1958.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"JQp1l0eYTstd2oycv4_e9Q\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/993385694\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'JQp1l0eYTstd2oycv4_e9Q',sig:'99A7gIemuExeI8Hdv30yQFwC9lmY6DsxF78wvVOGlf4=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'993385694',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SAMARA, Russia (June 7, 2018) &#8211; For the first time since 1990, England has reached a World Cup semifinal after defeating Sweden 2-0 without too much effort. The Three Lions sets in the semifinal for the first time in 28 years Two header goals sealed the deal for the English with Harry Maguire opener in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2126,"featured_media":17235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,27,2095],"tags":[1057,1449,2209,2394,2162,1754,2017,2399],"class_list":["post-17229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-fifa-tournament","category-world-cup","tag-2018-fifa-world-cup","tag-2018-world-cup","tag-england","tag-england-vs-sweden","tag-england-world-cup","tag-russia","tag-russia-2018","tag-sweden-world-cup"],"modified_by":"Matt Pollard","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}