Switzerland are in the World Cup quarter-finals for the first time since 1954 after Zeki Amdouni’s side beat Colombia 4-3 on penalties following a goalless draw. Ruben Vargas scored the decisive kick to finish a shootout that turned on one miss, one save and one calm finish.
That was enough to end a match that had little room for comfort and plenty of pressure. Colombia had more of the ball and more of the chances for long stretches, but they could not make it count when the openings arrived.
The result matters now because it sends Switzerland into a last-eight meeting with reigning world champions Argentina in Kansas City, with Norway or England waiting beyond that. For Switzerland, the reward is a return to the stage they had not reached in 70 years; for Colombia, it is another exit in a game they controlled in parts but never settled.
The shootout also carried its own edge. Manuel Akanji, a centre back, stepped up and missed by blazing his penalty over the bar, even after doing the same thing on a major stage against England in the 2024 Euros quarter-final. That he took one at all was no accident: in a penalty order, defenders are often used when teams want reliable long-strike technique and a player who can keep his nerve under a running total, but this time the gamble did not pay off. Vargas, by contrast, was positioned to take the final kick because the shootout was still alive and the last penalty always falls to the player next in the set order once the score reaches that point.
Colombia’s wastefulness ran deeper than one miss. They took more shots than every team at this World Cup except Belgium, and only Turkey and Ecuador under-performed their expected goals by a greater margin. Jaminton Campaz had one chance with the goal wide open and put the ball into the stands, a moment that summed up a side that had been praised as one of the tournament’s best watches before Switzerland slowed them down. In a gruelling goalless draw where clear-cut chances were at a premium, the better team with the ball still lost because it did not stay composed when the finish finally arrived.
Switzerland move on with the kind of result that changes a tournament run and a country’s memory of it. Colombia are left with the numbers that showed their threat and the moments that showed why it never became a breakthrough.
