Bitter failures of the past used to end penalty curse
CHIEF FOOTBALL WRITER in Moscow
The Football Association’s technical director, Dan Ashworth, commissioned a study into the failed penalty shoot-outs of previous tournaments where it was discovered that England players took less time over their kicks than any other nation. They will take their time now. Southgate’s current list even goes right up to 23, borne of the bitter experience that he was No6 that night at Wembley.
This England regime has not run away from the fact that the nation has the worst senior penalty shoot-out record in world football, losing them at World Cups in 1990, 1998 and 2006, and at the European Championships of 1996, 2004 and 2012.
In the 2003 book about his playing career, Woody and Nord, written as a co-autobiography with his friend and former team-mate Andy Woodman, Southgate describes the process by which he came to take the Euro ’96 penalty. He was unprepared to be asked and then in the moment felt that he could not turn it down.
“Terry Venables and Bryan Robson came towards me,” Southgate wrote. “‘Gareth, if it goes to six, will you take one?’ It hit me like a bolt from the blue. ‘Yeah, if you want me to take one, I’ll take one.’ About 30 seconds later Bryan returned. ‘Gareth, have you taken one before?’ ‘Yeah, Robbo,’ I said.
“With the shoot-out minutes away and tension mounting, Bryan didn’t ask for details. Suited me. My penalty career had been brief: one missed effort for Palace three seasons previously. I reassured myself that the sixth man was rarely needed. But once it got to 4-4, it was obvious the script had been written and I was part of it. Stefan Kuntz made it 5-5, and the wait was over.
“I didn’t look around, didn’t speak to anyone. I was the sixth man. It was my turn, nobody had forced me to volunteer. Inside my head, the struggle had already begun: ‘You can deal with this. Be definite, look confident, don’t change your mind, don’t look at the keeper, don’t fall over.’ Suddenly there was an eerie quietness around the stadium. I sensed the reason for it. ‘Who is it? Who is it?’ the crowd was thinking.”