Manager calls for ‘calmness’ if games go to shoot-outs
Squad know who will step up for penalties Southgate regrets being a ‘volunteer’ at Euro ’96
England have only two experienced penalty-takers – Harry Kane and Jamie Vardy. Ashley Young is the only other player to have taken at least five. how we would want to approach a shoot-out,” Southgate explained. “Making sure there’s a calmness, that we own the process, that it’s not just decisions that are made on the spur of the moment or even behaviours around the team: that it’s calm, the right people are on the pitch and there aren’t too many voices in people’s heads.
“We’ve finalised that in the leadup to this game as well. I think that’s all you can do. You keep preparing in the right way and try to affect the things you can.”
Southgate’s own miss came in England’s semi-final at Wembley against Germany. It has never left him, but has at least become something that he has “owned” and is prepared to speak about.
Southgate stepped up after answering manager Terry Venables’s call for volunteers following the reluctance of other players, who were more accustomed to taking penalties, to accept responsibility.
“I was a volunteer, really,” he said. “The type of character I was I felt you should put yourself forward. It is probably braver not to if you are not confident doing it. We will have a more considered list of who has been finishing in training, what the numbers should be, unless they are injured. If we have made changes, we keep updating the list.
“I have had a couple of decades thinking it through. In defence of the staff there at the time, shootouts weren’t as regular. We didn’t have as much information as we do now and FA Cup ties went to two, three replays, so we weren’t in those situations as often as we are now.
“It’s not about luck. It’s about performing a skill under pressure. There are individual things you can work on within that and there are things that can be unhelpful in terms of their preparation for players at that moment. There is lots we can do to own the process and not be controlled by it.
“There are the players that take them regularly and have their own routine and are able to maybe change decision depending on the goalkeeper, and others who maybe don’t take them as regularly who need to probably practise one or two stock penalties. That’s what we have tried to do, to deduce what group they are in.”