Perhaps the most striking part of England’s quarter-final victory against Switzerland in Düsseldorf was the sense of contrast. For large parts of normal and extra time England once again played like a team here under sufferance.
This was another awkward dance without music, a facsimile of how elite clubs play, footballers out there trying to run the patterns, then remembering that, actually, there are no patterns.
With all that safely out of the way the tone and texture of the evening abruptly changed. The preceding two hours were wiped. And at this point England’s penalty shootout staff produced a perfect little miniature.
This is something new. England and shootouts have now become a distinct element, a carefully planned and executed set piece, like sending out the kicking team in American football. Once again the defining figure was Jordan Pickford, penalty captain and master of his domain, who produced a masterclass in planning and inventive disruption.
In the process Pickford confirmed his own status as an all-time England tournament animal, out there grabbing the game by the lapels, boggling his eyes in its face, bending the day to his will.
It is always foolish to over-praise a goalkeeper. This is a high-wire act. The inevitable moment of calamity is only ever a second away. But as he prepares to play his third major semi-final in Dortmund on Wednesday, Pickford can surely now be considered England’s most successful tournament goalkeeper.
This England team is often accused of being lucky, even when there are stats and numbers to support its processes. Here are some more. England goalkeepers saved two penalties in shootouts between 1990 and 2012. Pickford has saved four out of 14 faced since 2018. This is cause and effect in action. It’s skill, planning and a lesson in how to win; which certainly makes a change from baffled and tear-stained defeat.
More interesting is the fact Pickford has done it his own way. In the pre-modern age goalkeepers tended to be mute, glowering figures, confined to their netted lair while the humans did football.
Pickford isn’t quite a hyper-modern sweeper-keeper. His thing is energy, agility and a very clear, interventionist personality.
But the qualities that might have made him a curious figure for some, the jitteriness, the open and vocal sensitivity to objects around him, have become super-strengths in these big tournament games. And most notably in a penalty shootout. Here is a man who has just played two hours of elite football, still energised, still digesting every detail, completely inside the moment.
So to the shootout, and that perfect sequence. Cole Palmer’s opening kick was vital, and also unusual. He smashed it into the corner rather than rolling it, then celebrated in unbound fashion, deliberately engaging the crowd. This is now the diktat. Studies suggest teams that celebrate more win more. Causation versus correlation, whatever. This is what we do now. Amplify the moment.
At which point, enter Pickford. Much has been made of the crib-sheet stuck to his water bottle telling him what the Swiss kickers tend to do. The sheet was accurate too. But it was only ever one part of the staging.
Looking back now the first thing you notice about Manuel Akanji’s opening kick for the Swiss is that when the defender steps up to take it Pickford is literally 40 yards away off to the right. Akanji is already fiddling with the ball. Pickford has to be ordered by the referee, Daniele Orsato, to take his place, which he does dutifully, almost tugging his forelock.
But first, of course, the water bottle must be fiddled with and a showy drink taken. And already drama is happening. Something is interfering with the way Akanji has imagined this.
Penalty takers really don’t want to hear or see the referee. Pickford steps forward so Orsato has to tell him to get back on his line again. Unbelievably, Pickford then walks out to pat the referee fondly on a biceps and thank him for it. These are Eric Morecambe levels of physical comedy. At this moment you either love Pickford or you’re being driven to distraction by him. And Akanji still has to take a penalty.
Pickford jumps six times on his line. Akanji stands still, staying cool, saying, yeah, I can wait too, but also, fatally, playing the game. Pickford is already moving as Akanji draws his leg back to strike the ball. Pickford knows Akanji isn’t going to change direction that late, as a more specialist kicker might. The bottle said “Dive left”. “Dive” is the key word here. Not “Go left”, or just “Left”.
Sweetly, presciently, Pickford has visualised himself actually diving here.
The kick is weakly struck. The best part of Pickford’s save is that he dives down as well as across, attacking the space beneath him as well. He smothers it, leaps up, puffs his chest, then literally salutes the referee as he marches past like a very happy 10-year-old boy taking an ovation in the school play, a moment that just seems to disarm Orsato completely.
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From there England’s sequence is near-perfect. Pickford doesn’t save another kick, but his performance is key. Jude Bellingham’s penalty to confirm the early lead is wonderfully free of tension. Immediately Pickford is back in the eyeline, never quite out of shot. As the next Swiss kick is paced out someone throws a plastic cup on to the pitch and Pickford makes a big show of picking it up and throwing it aside, waving at the referee, creating resistance. Oh, he’s a boy, this boy.
Even with the kicks that go past him Pickford is on his knees playing up the moment, distracting from the celebrations. He then insists on locating and respotting the ball for England’s takers. Not to mention getting in Yann Sommer’s personal space just a little as they cross over, controlling the energy, the voodoo of the penalty area.
The only time Pickford is ever really out of the picture is when England have a kick to take, at which point he’s a ghost, clearing the set. Bukayo Saka scores. Ivan Toney scores in the most ridiculously alpha fashion, just ambling up two steps, utterly in control, conducting the crowd bit, then walking very slowly past the Swiss kicker. Yeah. Your go.
By now Pickford is being ordered back again; terribly, terribly sorry for being so forgetful, then leaping up and respotting the ball before the ref can get there. With apologies, but only one man is in charge here. And he wears green and is from Sunderland.
Trent Alexander-Arnold has time to set himself, the moment teed up. He puts his kick in the left-hand corner, grabs the loose ball, hoofs it into the air, hugs Pickford. But England’s celebrations are telling too. This isn’t a pile-on. Nobody seems shocked or distraught.
It is instead controlled, the smiles knowing. Pickford hand-slaps and chest-bumps the backroom staff. A plan has been executed. Luck has fallen their way, but this is factored in too. England have been bad at quite a lot of things here. They’re good at this.
Mainly, what a moment it was for Pickford. He has been England’s most reliable player in Germany. The celebrations with the fans behind the goal after, or indeed just before the final whistle, have been very funny.
In between he has been reliably intense. His long-passing has been good, although perhaps seen too often. His short game can be a bit too urgent, but only one short pass has gone astray all tournament. Pickford has been decisive, has rescued England at times and has let in just three goals so far.
England have needed it too, because other players have gone missing. Harry Kane, another Southgate OG, was once again a strange, singular figure in Düsseldorf, a man having a long walk quite near an athletic event contested by other people. Kane has looked drained and peripheral for five straight major tournament games. The thought occurred: could this be a world record?
Kane still has a chance to put it right. The same goes for Southgate. England’s players have looked tired in Germany, in part because of a system that chafes and drags on every movement, like a car in the wrong gear. The key has been in finding moments to push them through, cashing in the stored-up momentum of eight years of solid work.
This will only take you so far, of course. But Southgate does deserve credit for his management of that final set piece, the game after the game, and specifically for the use of specialist subs as penalty takers, dismissed as an absurd and impractical idea after the defeat by Italy three years ago.
By winning this way England have given themselves a chance to put other parts of their game belatedly in order. But whatever happens from here Pickford, as auteur, director and self-cast star, has his own perfect little eight-minute short.