Jordan Pickford’s save helped England finish in the top four at the European Football Championship.
22:23•Updated 22:42
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On Saturday, England beat Switzerland in the penalty shootout of the quarter-finals of the European football tournament.
The penalty shootout saw a total of nine shots in five pairs of shots, eight of which scored a goal. The only failure was from Switzerland Manuel Akanjiwhose modest company England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford repelled.
Shortly after the match, it became clear how Pickford had prepared for this particular situation. In the close-ups, Pickford was seen examining a drink bottle wrapped in a towel, which had been accurately marked with Switzerland’s potential shooters for the penalty shootout.
In addition, the bottle had embroidered the tendencies of Swiss shooters, or what Pickford as a goalkeeper should do to save. For example, in the case of Akanji, there was a written instruction on the bottle to dive to the bottom left corner as seen from the goal, and that’s where Akanji aimed his shot.
Fabian Schärin at the point you had to guess in one direction before jumping to the other side. You had to be careful with some of them. A total of 18 Swiss players were recorded in the bottle and some sort of instruction for each one.
Schär shot his penalty just into the bottom right corner, but Pickford jumped to the other side. By following the instructions, he might have avoided that too. Xherdan Shaqiri shot to the left when viewed from the goal, as it read on Pickford’s bottle, but the hard shot hit the net despite the right guess.
Zeki Amdoun, Switzerland’s last shooter, had the most instructions. Pickford had to guess again from his point of view into the bottom left corner and the shot was destined to be low. The height went right and Pickford made an effort in the predicted direction, but Amdouni shot into the middle.
However, one save was enough to decide England’s progress to the semi-final stage, where they will face Spain.
Goalkeepers have often been seen carrying different lists in case of penalty kicks. Many times it has been a simple piece of paper that goalkeepers study while waiting for the next shot.
– It is normal to look through probably ten players. We are looking for a favorite angle, tendencies, or something that affects changing the angle, Palloliitto goalkeeper training expert Eemeli Reponen told earlier.
Pickford has specifically used a drinking bottle as an aid before.
In a Premier League match years ago, he had accurate maps made of the previous attempts of the opposition’s most likely shooters. In February, the bottle was marked with some kind of percentages related to the direction of the shots.
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