2024-07-07 23:39:43
England are in the quarter-finals of the European Championship after beating Switzerland 1-1 on penalties in regular time and extra time. But the big mystery remained – which of Phil Fowden and Harry Kane refused to hit the penalty kick.
It all started from reserve Trent Alexander-Arnold’s line to his family after the game. “He didn’t want to fight,” says Trent to his relatives. And that brought the options down to two.
Harry Kane and Fowden were substituted shortly before the end of extra-time, with Kane being thrown onto the England bench by Akanji and injured. And Alexander-Arnold appeared in Fowden’s place.
Goalkeeper Jordan Pickford’s water bottle caught everyone’s attention again. On it, England’s goalkeeper and coaching staff had written out all possible Swiss performers and how to react.
For Manuel Akanji, the instructions were precise and clear: jump to the left. And that’s exactly what happened. The goalkeeper easily saved the shot of the “Manchester City” defender. And that was the only missed penalty out of 10 for both teams.
However, it is interesting how this conclusion was reached, since Akanji, according to his career data, has never taken a penalty in regular time.
And participated twice in the execution of the 11-meter to determine the winner of the European front. And then he shot twice, both to the right of the goalkeeper – he scored against France and missed against Spain. Maybe his teammates like Phil Fowden, Kyle Walker or Declan Rice were asked. Cole Palmer was also at City until a few months ago before moving to Chelsea and is also under suspicion.
The next performer was Fabian Scher. The bottle read: Deceptive Plunge Right and Sharp Left. However, Pickford did not follow the instructions and did the opposite. Cher scored without problems.
The third shot was by Xherdan Shaqiri, who almost scored from a corner kick in extra time. And for him the instruction was – jump to the left. Pickford did it, the Swiss would in the same corner, but hard and extremely accurate and scored.
The bottle didn’t help only with Zeki Amduni’s strike. It said: hold, dive left, low. However, the Swiss would right in the middle of the goal and also scored without a problem.
The striker of “Ludogorets” Kwadvo Dua, who did not enter the game, was also written on the bottle. Against him the instruction was: hold, react. Or in other words, the assailant had to be followed until the last moment.
Thus, the English won after execution of penalties in a European for the first time since 1996. Then they eliminated Spain 4:2 after 0:0 in regular time and extra time. Four consecutive losses followed, including in the Wembley final against Italy in the continental championship.
Pickford’s notes are nothing new. Back at the European Juniors in 2017, he was caught hiding the instructions in his socks in the semi-finals.
Then it was water bottle time. She became a hit at the World Cup in 2018, when in the 1/8 final Pickford saved a penalty from Carlos Bacchi, and so for the first time the British won at the World Cup after taking the penalty. Then the notes on the bottle also debuted.
Shortly before the World Cup, Pickford had also written his homework for the friendly match with the USA. However, the English would win 3:0 and there was no penalty.
At the European front-runner, Pickford saved two penalties for Italy, but could not affect the performances of Marcus Rashford, Jaden Sancho and Bukayo Saka, who missed as the Italians took the title at Wembley.
In his club team “Everton”, however, Pickford reached unknown heights. In the national team, there are only notes on the bottle. However, ahead of the 2021 match with West Ham, the bottle was filmed with pictograms of the last penalties taken by Mark Noble, Michael Antonio and Declan Rice.
Pickford has clearly picked up on the fear of the Swiss. On 9 June 2019, in the third-place match of the League of Nations tournament in Guimarães, he not only saved Josip Durmić’s sixth penalty, but also scored one for England in a 6–5 victory.
The match with Switzerland was also the hundredth of Gareth Southgate and his assistant Steve Holland in charge of England. Southgate is only the third in history to reach the mark, behind Walter Winterbottom (139) and Sir Alf Ramsey (113), and the first to reach 100 since 1972 when Ramsey beat Wales 1-0. Gareth holds the record for the man who has represented England the most – 100 games as a manager, 37 as a youth coach and 57 as a player, or a total of 194 caps. In his hundred games, he has 60 wins, 24 draws and 16 losses with a goal difference of 209:68. Sir Alf Ramsay in his first 100 had 63 wins, 23 draws and 14 losses, and Winterbottom 59, 23 and 18.
Under Southgate, England are the only side in Europe to reach at least the quarter-finals of their last four major championships. He also holds the record for major league appearances in charge of the national team with 24 ahead of Sir Bobby Robson (15), Sven-Goran Eriksson and Walter Winterbottom (14 each) and Sir Alf Ramsey (12), with only Ramsey having a better tally for wins with 66.7%.
The previous European final was England’s first since the 1966 World Cup, when they took the title, and the 2018 World Cup quarter-final was their first after a gap of 28 years.
In terms of winning percentage, Southgate is fourth in the ranking of English coaches with 60.6. Fabio Capello is #1 at 66.7, followed by Ramsey at 61.1 and Glenn Hoddle at 60.7.
He is seventh in the world for appearances in major championships behind Joachim Loew (38), Didier Deschat (34), Helmut Schön (29), Fernando Santos (28), Guus Hiddink (27) and Lars Lagerback (26).
His five favorite players are Harry Kane (79 caps under his management), Kyle Walker (68), John Stones (66), Jordan Pickford (66) and Harry Maguire (63). Kane (60), Raheem Sterling (18), Marcus Rashford (16), Bukayo Saka (12) and Maguire (7) scored the most goals.