Jordan Pickford has pretty much seen it all since making his first England appearance at under-16 level in 2009. Although he experienced the embarrassment of conceding the only goal scored by a goalkeeper from open play at a Fifa World Cup match against Canada in the under-17 edition in Mexico two years later, the 32-year-old has more than made up for it.
The 2-0 victory against Panama on Saturday was the 29th major tournament England game in a row to feature Pickford as Thomas Tuchel’s side secured top spot in Group L to set up a meeting with the Democratic Republic of Congo in Atlanta on Wednesday. As the Everton goalkeeper is fully aware, things are about to get much more serious.
“It ramps up now, doesn’t it?” he said after his 46th clean sheet, and sixth at the World Cup, from 87 caps. “It’s a proper phase of football. One game at a time. There are lads who have won Champions Leagues, lads who have been in youth tournaments with England. Everyone knows the pressure of it and I think that is where you will see us thrive.”
Pickford joined Everton from Sunderland during England’s run to the semi-finals of the Under-21 European Championships in Poland in 2017, when they were defeated by Germany in a penalty shootout. Other than six games of a Europa League campaign in his first season at Goodison Park, his non-domestic experience has been limited to international football. Pickford has looked shaky at times in England’s first three matches and was extremely fortunate not to be punished for charging out of his penalty area and clattering the Ghana substitute Prince Kwabena Adu, but his record for the senior side remains unblemished.
Dean Henderson has been pushing hard after an excellent season at Crystal Palace, but there was never any question who would be Tuchel’s No 1 at this World Cup. Pickford is one of the last remnants of the Gareth Southgate era still in the starting XI and his muscle memory at major tournaments could be a big advantage for England as they head into the knockout stages.
“It’s not too different,” he said when asked how they would approach the next few days. “We’ve got our goal. You work on the training pitch, you keep that enjoyment and keep that fun environment. But once you’re training you’re working, you take the messages in and for me that’s the glue really. Because you want to be enjoying it but you don’t want to be solely focused on too much tomorrow, thinking about the next game.
“You want to have that recovery environment but when we’re off the pitch it’s like our downtime and [we can] relax and have fun between us. And that’s what we do. That’s what I feel we’ve got right since I got here in 2018.”
If there is one marked difference between England under Tuchel and Southgate it has been the approach to defending. As was evident against Panama when they were almost caught out on more than one occasion, there has been a conscious effort to take more risks by pushing Nico O’Reilly high up the pitch from left back, often leaving his fellow defenders one-on-one. But Pickford believes that it could unlock their attacking potential.
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“I wouldn’t say it’s a risk,” he said. “It’s tactical. We’re playing front-foot football. Hopefully everyone at home is enjoying it. We’re enjoying it. There are a lot of positives out of it because we want to get the ball high up and suffocate teams. That is what we’ll do. There will be the odd time when they’ll make one or two passes and you’ve got to be on your A game. It’s about recovery. You’ve seen a lot of recovery runs. There are a lot of lads putting a lot of effort in. Effort into last-ditch tackles. And then it comes down to me when I need to make a save as well.”
Pickford’s heroics in the cathartic penalty shootout victory aganst Colombia in the last 16 of the 2018 World Cup have gone down in England folklore given their previous history. He also made a penalty save from Manuel Akanji during the Euro 2024 shootout win against Switzerland and scored one against the same country in a Nations League third-placed playoff in 2019. He has been practising again just in case.
“I’ve been taking a few. You’ve got to be prepared. We have so many good penalty takers so that’s put me down the pecking order. It’s my job to make the saves and in tournaments, time and time before, I’ve always come up with a save in a shootout for England and I’ll hopefully continue that. We believe in each other – they have confidence I can save a penalty and I have confidence they can score them. But we want to be winning the game, we don’t want to go to penalties.”