Penalties Again

For so many years the words ‘England on Penalties Again’ would have filled the hearts of many an Englishman with soul-crushing dread.

England’s record on penalties in recent memory had been nothing short of shambolic, for those of a certain vintage the exit in Euro 1996 will spring to mind. Worst part about that night for most people was that it occurred at Wembley in front of more than 75,000 people against the old enemy Germany.

The person hurt most by that exit was none other than the current England Manager, Gareth Southgate, who missed the crucial penalty that evening.

Redemption is always possible though as Stuart Pearce, also known as Psycho, showed that evening by scoring to avenge his miss in the 1990 World Cup Semi-Final against the same opponents.

Southgate would have been searching for his own psycho redemption moment for decades before he took over as England Manager, only for it to present itself during his first major tournament in the job, at the 2018 World Cup.

Back in a capital city once more it was in Moscow that Mr. Waistcoat himself would find his redemption from the dugout. I’m sure we all remember where we were watching it from, I was crouching behind a sofa myself, when the Colombia game in the round of 16 went to a shootout.

One of my friends even said the immortal words “penalties again for England, where it always goes wrong”. Under normal circumstances that would have been prophetic, but these were normal circumstances no more.

This time England knew what they were doing and shrugged off the full weight of the universe, not to mention the pressure of our historical record, to finally win a shootout!!!!

It looked to be business as usual when Jordan Henderson saw his kick saved by David Ospina, “here we go again” my friend chimed in “piss off” said the rest of us but most accepted he was right.

Then Uribe saw his smash off the crossbar and when Jordan Pickford saved from Carlos Bacca history awaited us.

As we watched Eric Dier stepped up to the spot many of us thought Southgate was insane to trust such a pressure moment to a defensive midfielder, but the manager knew best and as that ball bulged the net history was made.

In the words of the commentator that night “History in itself” had been made and for hundreds of thousands across the nation “suddenly, all things seem possible”

Perhaps we have forgotten that feeling since, as we lay into the team for their admittedly lack-lustre performances at Euro 2024.

This England team is the most successful team we have had since 1966 and when we watched the shootout against the Swiss on Saturday there was no more hiding behind the sofa, just relaxing in it because this team have made the dread in the pit of the stomach when you hear the words ‘England on Penalties Again’ a thing of the past.

Sure no-one expected us to deliver a perfect shootout, with the opposition’s keeper never looking like getting close to stopping a single penalty, but the bottomless pit of dread is no more.

In fact I’d personally be happy for it to be ‘penalties again’ against The Netherlands in Dortmund on Wednesday evening.

We have made the semi-finals against all the odds and now we stand 2 games from history itself on Sunday all thanks to penalties again for England.

BRING ON THE PENATLIES