Pickford on penalty practice and prospects

England head into the FIFA World Cup 2026 knockout stages when they take on DR Congo in Atlanta on Wednesday afternoon (5pm BST).

The Three Lions squad touched down in Georgia on Tuesday evening ahead of the game, the day after fellow European nations Germany and Netherlands had exited the competition in penalty shootouts against Paraguay and Morocco respectively.

So when head coach Thomas Tuchel and goalkeeper Jordan Pickford sat down to speak to the media in Atlanta, it didn’t take long for the time-honoured question around England’s approach to penalties to come up.

Of course, this isn’t something new to Pickford, who was between the posts in 2018 when England registered their first World Cup penalty shootout win against Colombia in the Round of 16 in Russia.

“You've got to be prepared for anything, it’s knockout football now and anything can happen,” said the Everton man when asked for his thoughts on the prospect of more penalties.

“For us as England, we want to win in 90 minutes but if it takes 120 and if it takes penalties, then we're prepared. We've done all the training and we're ready for the game.”

Tuchel then spoke about the method of preparing a team in advance for the prospect of a penalty shootout, which is clearly a key part of competing in major international tournaments.

“I think it's very difficult to simulate the pressure, so we train what we can train,” he revealed.

“I heard Thierry Henry say that he can't remember his walk-up in his first penalty shootout for France. He can't even remember anything from the middle line to the penalty, but I think you cannot train that.

“It comes down to execution, it comes down to repetitive action. It's a set piece, so of course we can train that.

“We have a programme in place and we follow this programme in detail. It's just an important and a very specific part of football that comes into place in knockout matches.

“So, we are prepared. We know the process and players know the process and we are prepared as much as you can prepare it.”

Both Pickford and Tuchel spoke about the previous day’s shootouts, which they were watching back at their World Cup base in Kansas City.

And Pickford in particular was a keen observer of how the shootouts progressed.

“If they're [players] missing pens, that's good for goalkeepers,” he added.

“I would say every keeper's different, everyone's got their own routines and their own preparations for it.

“You've seen last night with [Morocco ‘keeper] Bounou and his save, it's a different save and he put them off and that happens - that's football and everyone's different.

“Like the manager said, it's high pressure and it's about execution and repetition and that's what we're prepared for.”