Southgate has plan to overcome penalty curse
England manager Gareth Southgate is thinking of putting his team through a mock penalty shootout before a Wembley crowd in an attempt to overcome their traditional nerves at major soccer competitions.
England have suffered shootout eliminations from six major tournaments – three World Cups and three European Championships – since Italia ’90, enjoying one solitary success against Spain in Euro ’96.
Their win ratio of 14 percent is the worst of any major nation involved in more than five shootouts.
Southgate famously missed from the spot against Germany in Euro ’96, allowing himself to be lampooned in a pizza advert alongside Chris Waddle and Stuart Pearce, who both fluffed penalties in the 1990 World Cup semifinal against West Germany.
England’s failures have become a recurring national joke, with acres of newsprint and even academic studies devoted to why their players are found wanting in such situations.
The conclusions have included the speed at which England take penalties – an average 0.28 seconds response time from when the referee blows his whistle – to being trapped in a decades-long cycle of failure.
Statistics suggest that players have an 89 percent chance of scoring if the team’s last two shootouts have been successful. The figure drops to 57 percent if they have failed, as England almost always have.
Former manager SvenGoran Eriksson considered countering England’s dismal record by ordering a dress rehearsal before the 2006 World Cup, but never went through with the idea.
Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher all missed from the spot when England lost their quarterfinal shootout against Portugal.
Now Southgate has resurrected the plan as part of his preparations for next year’s World Cup finals.
“It’s something that we are considering – how we prepare best for penalty shootouts,” said Southgate.
“Whether that’s something on the training ground, whether that’s in sessions we do away from the training ground, or something we do in some sort of match scenario. We’ve not finalized that yet but clearly that [match situation] is an option.”