The England goalkeeper and head coach Thomas Tuchel speak about the preparation for penalties
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.”