Tuchel to keep Southgate's penalty blueprint for England at World Cup

Thomas Tuchel will keep England on Sir Gareth Southgate’s penalty blueprint at the World Cup, preserving a process the Football Association has used for years rather than installing a new system.

Tuchel said England already have a settled order for spot-kicks, even if he cannot know which players will still be on the pitch at the end of a knockout match. He also said a shootout cannot be fully recreated in training, because the walk to the spot and the pressure of the stadium are impossible to duplicate exactly.

England’s first knockout match is against DR Congo in Atlanta on Wednesday, July 2, 2026, a game that could push the national team back into the most anxious corner of tournament football. The decision to keep Southgate’s framework leaves intact a setup built around repetition, clarity and role definition for players who have spent years trying to change England’s record from the spot.

That history has been brutal. Before Southgate took charge in 2016, England had won only one of seven major-tournament shootouts. Under Southgate, they won three of four between 2018 and 2024, turning a long-running weakness into one of the most carefully managed parts of the England operation.

Southgate’s methods went far beyond routine practice. England rehearsed penalties regularly, selected takers in advance and used a buddy system for the walk back from the spot. Jordan Pickford also studied opponents by writing their likely directions on his water bottle, a small detail that became part of a broader attempt to reduce uncertainty when matches reached sudden death.

The approach delivered its clearest result at Euro 2024, when England beat Switzerland on penalties and scored all five of their spot-kicks for the first time in a shootout. Pickford later said he had saved five of the 20 penalties he had faced for England since 2018, including at least one in each of the four shootouts he has been involved in.

Southgate’s own missed penalty against Germany at Euro 1996 remains part of the backdrop to England’s fixation with the issue. Tuchel’s choice to preserve the same programme suggests England are treating the shootout less as a moment for improvisation than as a test of institutional memory, built on data, rehearsal and the hope that the next pressure kick will behave more like a pattern than a gamble.