Feeling a need to depress myself at England’s desperate penalty shoot-out record I thought I’d look back and see how it all stacked up with kicks taken during regular matches also. It makes grim reading…
Since the World Cup quarter-final against Cameroon in Italy in 1990 where Gary Lineker netted twice, England have had 25 penalties in active play and of these 18 were scored and 7 were missed. A 72% success rate.
Meanwhile, in penalty shoot-outs, they’ve won one and lost SIX!
West Germany 1990 (Turin, Italy)
WORLD CUP SEMI-FINAL – 1-1 AET (3-4)
England scored three of their five penalties in their first penalty shoot-out competition. Stuart Peace and Chris Waddle both failed to find the back of the net. 60% success rate.
Spain 1996 (Wembley)
EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP QUARTER-FINAL – 0-0 AET (4-2)
Four kicks taken and all four scored as England won their first (and so far only) penalty shoot-out as they beat Spain in the quarter-finals at Euro96. 100% success rate.
Germany 1996 (Wembley)
EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP SEMI-FINAL – 1-1 AET (5-6)
Five scored out of six pens with Gareth Southgate missing out in the Euro96 semi-final. 83% success rate.
Belgium 1998 (Casablanca, Morrocco)
KING HASSAN II INTERNATIONAL CUP TOURNAMENT – 0-0 (3-4)
Three succesful penalties and two missed in this largely forgotten 1998 World Cup warm up competition. Rob Lee and Rio Ferdinand were the players who failed score this time. 60% uccess rate.
I can’t find a video of this game so here’s a clip from the teams 1990 World Cup second round match.
Argentina 1998 (Saint-Étienne, France)
WORLD CUP SECOND ROUND – 2-2 AET (3-4)
This second round tie saw England again score three and miss two with Paul Ince and David Batty the culprits this time. 60% success rate.
On a side note my eldest may have started her journey in life after this match finished as she was born some nine months later.
Portugal 2004 (Lisbon, Portugal)
EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP QUARTER-FINAL – 2-2 AET (5-6)
This Euro2004 quarter-final clash saw England score five times and miss twice more through David Beckham and Darius Vassell. 71% success rate.
Portugal 2006 (Gelsenkirchen, Germany)
WORLD CUP QUARTER-FINAL – 0-0 AET (1-3)
Another competition and another quarter-final with Portugal. This time England converted just one penalty with Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher all missing. A gut-wrenching and pitiful 25% success rate.
This all means that England have taken a total of 56 penalties in 20 years and missed an astonishing 19 representing a very poor 66% success rate.
Jeez.
If you can bear it you can look at the details on these excellent sites:
http://www.englandfootballonline.com/TeamPenalty/Index.html
http://www.penaltyshootouts.co.uk/index.html
http://www.englandstats.com/index.php
