Only one man in charge: how Pickford became England’s penalty hero

Jordan Pickford makes a save from Switzerland's Manuel Akanji. The goalkeeper was England’s hero of the penalty shootout. Photograph: Thanassis Stavrakis/AP

Perhaps the most striking part of England’s quarter-final victory against Switzerland in Düsseldorf was the sense of contrast. For large parts of normal and extra time England once again played like a team here under sufferance.

This was another awkward dance without music, a facsimile of how elite clubs play, footballers out there trying to run the patterns, then remembering that, actually, there are no patterns.