For Gareth Southgate, there is always the possibility it will come back to penalties. It is his history; England’s, too. It is also the nature of international football. The last World Cup final was decided on spot kicks, along with two quarter-finals and two last-16 ties. In Euro 2020, they determined a last-16 game, a quarter-final, a semi-final and, as England know to their cost, the final.
And yet this season’s Champions League contained its first shootout since the 2016 final. Maybe it is a consequence of one-off ties in neutral venues, maybe the way the margins can be narrower in the international game when managers lack the same time to develop a style of play and a level of cohesion to win games in regulation time. Or perhaps it is just something innate to the England manager and his team.
It is 28 years now since Andreas Kopke dived to his right to parry Southgate’s rather tame spot kick in Euro ’96. Southgate himself is responsible for bringing more thought, more practice, more science to the discipline a variety of players and managers used to describe simply as “a lottery”. Perhaps it wasn’t when England got their cathartic win against Colombia in the 2018 World Cup. Planning and practice did not make perfect against Italy in the Euro 2020 final, however. Even the tournament when his England did not have a shootout featured a crucial penalty, ballooned by Harry Kane over Hugo Lloris’ bar as France won a 2022 World Cup quarter-final.
And so to England against Slovakia. With Southgate’s side low-scoring and drawing their last two matches, with Slovakia having three tight group games, the chances of a shootout in Gelsenkirchen seem still greater. “We’ll prepare as thoroughly as we always do but we are always refining that process,” said the England manager. “We want as much control of that process as we possibly can. We have prepared over a period of time.”
None of which offers a guarantee of success, as he knows. But international managers are always at the mercy of club football. This time, Southgate sees a benefit from it. Kane has reverted to being reliable from the spot, scoring 15 in a row since returning from Qatar. “Whenever I miss a penalty, no matter what game it is I always pride myself on then making sure I get on another good run,” he said. He may only be the third-best taker in the squad. The emergence of the nerveless Cole Palmer – 10 out of 10 this season – and the presence of Ivan Toney, who has scored 30 out of 32 in his career, could seem to give him three bankers.
“We definitely have a lot more regular penalty takers for their clubs than we had three or four years ago, in some instances the second penalty takers for their clubs,” Southgate said. Kane concurred: “I’m not sure it’s the ‘best group of penalty takers we’ve ever had’ but it’s probably the most experienced group we’ve had. If you compare the amount of takers we’ve got compared to the last Euros, I think having regular takers is important and players who have taken some in high-pressure penalty shootouts since or in big games since.”
Kane, Bukayo Saka, Palmer and Toney are all the regulars for their clubs. Eberechi Eze, Anthony Gordon and Jude Bellingham have scored them this season. Declan Rice and Kyle Walker have struck in shootouts. Set against that, however, England have lost Harry Maguire, who had an added value as a penalty-taking defender who thumped in his spot kick in the Euro 2020 final.
There is also the question of when to deploy the spot-kick specialists. Palmer and Toney had a conversation this week about coming on cold, potentially with the penalty proving their first and only touch. The Chelsea top scorer is prepared to do it.
Southgate could be scarred by his own past, and not merely as a player. The 120th-minute introductions of Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho backfired against Italy three years ago. Rashford took England’s third penalty and hit the inside of the post. Sancho took the fourth and was denied by Gianluigi Donnarumma. Then Southgate was blamed for not giving either longer to adjust to the game.
“I think in the World Cup final Argentina brought [Paulo] Dybala on with two minutes to go and he scored,” Southgate countered; it was still later, as the striker was introduced in injury-time. “The [2021] Europa League final before our Euro final, [Manchester United manager] Ole Gunnar Solskjaer brought on Alex Telles and Juan Mata on in the 123rd minute, they scored, they lost the game and he got slaughtered for not changing his goalkeeper.” David de Gea saved none of Villarreal’s 11 spot kicks and missed his own. Southgate suggested he would not copy Louis van Gaal in the 2014 World Cup and substitute Jordan Pickford. “Our goalkeeper's very, very good at saving penalties, he's got a fantastic record, so, not sure we need to do that,” he said. “In fact, all our goalkeepers are pretty good at that.”
But Southgate knows he can be damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. “Hindsight is always the master in those moments, you make decisions and you make decisions for the right reasons at the time with the evidence you have before you, but you will be the only one who ends up accountable for those decisions,” he said. And, yet again, everything could be decided by penalties.
