Only a mildly masochistic English fan would want the Euro 2024 final to go to penalties. The King himself has asked Gareth Southgate to get things done in 90 minutes.
We’ve been here before, three years ago, and ended up on the losing side. But England’s spot-kick training has stepped up a level since then to leave them with nothing to fear if it goes the distance against Spain, courtesy of what one expert has labelled the best penalty shoot-out preparations in world football.
Some aspects of England’s gameplan, especially earlier in the tournament, have come in for justifiable criticism. But their notorious 12-yard Achilles’ heel is better served than ever. Penalties have been on Southgate’s mind ever since he took up the job in 2016, when he quickly set up an 18-month task force assigned with ending England’s hoodoo of six defeats out of seven on spot-kicks.
Their work would exorcise the demons of his own Euro 96 miss as England went on to beat Colombia in the last 16 at World Cup 2018, but the old anxieties returned with defeat to Italy in the Euro 2020 final three years later.
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Jamie Carragher says Gareth Southgate and England’s penalty analysts deserve a lot of credit following their shoot-out win over Switzerland
Southgate is as aware as anyone that penalties are not a lottery, and his record of three shoot-out wins from four is testament to the work he has demanded to create small but crucial advantages over their opponents.
It manifested in England’s perfect spot kicks against Switzerland, a unique milestone and the first time they have netted five out of five in a shoot-out.
Southgate and his backroom staff have created “the most robust set-up in the world” from 12 yards in the mind of Geir Jordet, a professor in psychology and football at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences.
“They have prepared, they have made mistakes, they have corrected those mistakes,” said Jordet, who worked as part of that FA task force eight years ago.
“England, with this set-up, and the quality of the penalty takers and goalkeeper, would be favourites in any shoot-out in this tournament. And who would have thought that several years ago?
“In my opinion England have got the most robust, deliberate, structured set-up in the world.”
Of course, success is still not a guarantee. You never know when a sandy penalty spot will claim its next victim, or a goalkeeper feeling particularly prophetic will have a purple patch.
England’s focus is on controlling the controllables, something they have done better than anyone else at this tournament and something that at least gives them the best possible platform to perform.
Once the whistle went at the end of extra-time against Switzerland last Saturday, Southgate gathered a huddle of only his 11 players, all of whom may have been required to take spot-kicks.
The rest of the squad, plus England’s backroom team, were sent away – unlike in previous shoot-outs.
It allowed him to address and inspire his players directly, but also lay out a new part of their methodology. Each taker was assigned a ‘buddy’ to welcome them back into the pack on the halfway line after their spot-kick, to embrace the pressure collectively rather than have it on one individual.
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After Ivan Toney’s no-look penalty against Switzerland, England had some light-hearted fun in their training camp with the Brentford striker
The images of Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho trudging the 50 yards back to the centre circle alone after missing their kicks in the Euro 2020 final will almost certainly have inspired the move.
Jordet criticised England’s previous approach in his recently published book, ‘Pressure: Lessons from the psychology of the penalty shoot-out’. Long before Euro 2020, he had suggested a less structured version of this new approach to the task force. Six years on, it appears it has been taken on board.
“I think they had a focus on the process whether they scored or missed, which was something they picked up from Great Britain hockey,” he said.
“That, to me, is a wasted opportunity to show togetherness, belonging, cohesion, support and these kinds of things.
“Back in 2007, I had worked on the entire team welcoming a player back to the centre-circle and spoke to the FA task force about it, but England did not adopt it in 2018 or 2021. Now they have even taken it to the next level.”
England had another Jordan Pickford-shaped ace up their sleeve too – until referee Daniele Orsato’s suspicion was aroused and he threatened the goalkeeper with a yellow card.
Pickford has handed England’s upcoming penalty taker the ball in every shoot-out under Southgate. This time, he was meant to greet them on the edge of the penalty area and chaperone them to the penalty spot, presenting a two-on-one psychological front to Swiss goalkeeper Yann Sommer.
It was prematurely stopped by the threat of sanction for unsportsmanlike conduct. “Maybe he didn’t understand my accent,” the Sunderland native later laughed.
He is an old hand at bending the rules of a shoot-out, and had already been warned by Orsato for time-wasting ahead of Manuel Akanji’s opening Swiss penalty.
When the Man City defender missed from 12 yards, he could have done with his team-mates adopting the same approach England had back on the half-way line.
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Penalty decision-making, tactical plans and England’s streetwise nature were on the agenda during Gareth Southgate’s press conference following the Switzerland win
While their Swiss counterparts stood in the traditional chain of locked arms, England’s players largely stayed as a broader swarm – avoiding the optics of an ‘us vs you’ situation in quite the same way when takers returned from the 18-yard box.
That added pressure might not have been the difference in England’s disappointment back in 2021, but all these small aspects add up.
In the aftermath of the Italy defeat, with a scapegoat required, the decision to bring on Rashford and Sancho in the seconds before the end of extra-time took up much of the frustrated analysis.
Southgate did not make the same mistake twice. The seven and 13 minutes Trent Alexander-Arnold and Ivan Toney played before Saturday’s penalties was not physically significant, but psychologically it made a difference.
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Captain Harry Kane praised Bukayo Saka’s mentality after stepping up to take a penalty in England’s win over Switzerland
“With Rashford and Sancho in 2021 they came on without any sort of rhythm,” said Jordet. “It’s like they’re not part of the team, almost.
“The rest of their team has got them to the penalty shoot-out and now it’s up to them to perform and give the team-mates their reward, and that’s more pressure.
“The key to fix that is to give the players more time in the game and to some extent, Southgate did that.”
Now the cat is out of the bag. Spain will have had eight days to work out how to disrupt these best-laid plans from the spot, should it get that far.
But with England’s comfort of knowing they have done everything they can to prepare ahead of time, will it be enough?