Generations of England fans know two things to be true. The first: that Germany always reach the latter stages of international tournaments. The second: that England always lose on penalties. But in the space of a week, those narratives have been crushed, and over the next 11 days this England team has the opportunity to forge new expectations of their national team for generations to come. Either way, they’re doing it by focusing on process more than ever before.
When the mood turns, I often find myself consulting the odds. While Colombia had clearly seized the initiative against England after their late equaliser in normal time, I knew that a review of similar situations showed that teams turn their equalisers into victories no more often than we would expect from chance. Defeat was not inevitable for England.
This cold-blooded perspective is harder to maintain during a penalty shootout. England’s record coming into the World Cup was one victory in seven, a failure rate (and it is most appropriate to frame it as such) of 86 per cent. It is impossible not to be emotionally swayed by this description of the past, but a glance at the betting markets for a prediction of the future suggested that history was irrelevant to either team’s chances, that the shootout was a pure 50-50 contest.
And while it is easy to say so in hindsight, there is good evidence that England may have actually held the cards in the shootout. In previous penalty defeats, England can be accused of having been unprepared. England’s own head coach Gareth Southgate missed a crucial penalty in Euro 1996, having only ever taken one before in his professional career (that too a miss). Common thinking at the time was it was futile practicing penalties, given the inability to recreate the pressure of the shootout on the training field.
Watching the video of Southgate’s miss in 1996, it is defined by how rushed it all seems. He places the ball down, takes ten steps back and begins his run up on the referee’s whistle, as if desperate to get the whole experience over and done with. Ben Lyttleton, the author of Twelve Yards: The Art and Psychology of the Perfect Penalty, found that England players have historically had the shortest ‘reaction’ time between the referee’s whistle and the start of their run up. England players have been rushing their spot kicks for decades.
Southgate’s error was nowhere to be seen on Tuesday, though. All the England players, to a greater or lesser degree, took a moment to compose themselves before running up to strike the ball. This was surely no coincidence. Penalty shootouts undoubtedly require luck, but good process can help nudge the odds in your favour.
This small detail hints at the preparation that has gone into this England team. The FA has invested heavily in both facilities and personnel at St George’s Park, the country’s national football centre in Staffordshire. All its national teams - senior and youth, men and women’s – have access to a dedicated team of coaches, analysts, and sports scientists. The FA hired Pippa Grange, a psychologist who has been tasked with improving the team’s “psychological resilience”, and they are one of the very few football organisations – be it national teams or domestic clubs – who are alive to the opportunities that analytics offers in the sport. From an operational perspective, there is a professionalism and commitment to process that for decades has not existed within the English game.
There is a certain irony, therefore, that England will need to get past a very English team in order to reach their first World Cup semi final since 1990. Sweden play a 4-4-2 formation, relying on big centre forwards in attack and dogged defending at the back – a method that has historically been synonymous with England. But whereas these tactics were once evidence of England’s technical deficiencies, Sweden have turned them into a strength, creating low-scoring contests in which they have a greater chance of upsetting stronger opposition.
This, however, was the draw England wanted, and vindication of Southgate’s decision to rest key players in their final group match against Belgium. The defeat in that match meant England avoided playing Brazil, France, Uruguay, Portugal or Argentina until the final, but opened him up to accusations of conceding momentum and confidence. The evidence for momentum in sport remains mixed though, not least in this tournament. Germany lost to South Korea days after a dramatic, momentum-seizing win against Sweden, while Belgium showed no signs of momentum from the England win when 2-0 down against Japan in the second round. You apparently have it until you don’t.
England have also benefitted from Spain’s surprise defeat on penalties against hosts Russia. Spain were England’s likely semi-final opponents, but instead they are now on the list of eliminated major nations, alongside Germany and Argentina (not to mention failed to qualify for Italy and the Netherlands’ failure to qualify). All these failures, either due to or at the hands of historically non-major nations, hints further at the shrinking gap between big and small in international football, and how a collection of technically gifted players will not always trump a limited but well-coached team. Major nations will need to adapt, knowing they can’t simply pass weaker opponents to death (as Spain tried on Sunday), and therefore need to offer multiple threats to break teams down.
However, if England are to progress further, they will need to add more dimensions to their attack, specifically from open play. Of their nine World Cup goals so far, seven have come from dead ball situations (including three penalties). Remarkably, they haven’t scored a goal from open play in six knockout matches since 2004. While England have shown invention from set piece situations, it’s not sustainable to wholly rely on this as a source of goals.
Most importantly, England will need to keep balancing good process with good luck. The fine margins at this tournament can be seen through the odds. For instance, according to a prediction made by our analytics team at sports strategic consultants 21st Club, England’s odds of winning the trophy collapsed to just three per cent when Jordan Henderson missed his third penalty. Now, after the shootout victory, their chances stand at 20 per cent – above France (14 per cent), Uruguay (ten per cent), Croatia (nine per cent), Belgium (nine per cent), Russia (five per cent) and Sweden (five per cent). The only country with better odds are favourites Brazil, at 28 per cent.
England’s management will have known that whatever the eventual result, the process is as strong as it has ever been. In football, that’s all you can control.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
