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In case of emergency, break glass. Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup squad was largely as predicted, bar perhaps a Djed Spence here and a Cole Palmer there, but there was a surprise when Ivan Toney’s name emerged in the frame on Thursday, England’s window-hammer.
This was Toney’s role at Euro 2024, and he was extremely effective, coming off the bench in added time to flick an assist for Harry Kane in the last-gasp win over Slovakia, before appearing in extra time to score in the shootout against Switzerland in the quarter-finals. Toney is probably not going to win England the World Cup. But there’s a chance he might keep them in it.
The latter element – Toney’s penalty prowess – should not be underestimated, and it provokes a wider question: should penalties really be a factor in deciding a tournament squad? Well, perhaps more so than ever before.
If England are going to win the World Cup, coming through five knockout rounds, the statistics say they will have to win two shootouts. The reigning world champions, Argentina, won two games on penalties, and that was before this year’s bloated 48-team tournament with a new round of 32 (formerly known as “the World Cup”).
There is conflicting evidence about just how effective it is to throw on shootout specialists late in extra time. Southgate memorably brought on Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho to take penalties against Italy in the Euro 2020 final, and both missed their kicks. That came only a few weeks after the Europa League final, in which both Manchester United and Sevilla brought on players to take penalties – Juan Mata, Alex Telles and Dani Raba – and all three scored.
Perhaps the most famous example of shootout engineering was Louis van Gaal’s call to throw on Netherlands goalkeeper Tim Krul at the 2014 World Cup: he saved two Costa Rican penalties to win the quarter-final. Van Gaal ran out of subs in the semi-final, couldn’t bring on Krul, and they lost a shootout to Argentina.
Toney is about as guaranteed as it gets. His professional record is 58 from 62, according to Transfermarkt, or 95 per cent. For context, the Premier League average hovers around 78 per cent, as does Lionel Messi. The success rate drops to 70 per cent in major tournament shootouts, in part down to the pressure of the situation, and because the takers tend not to be specialists, bar one or two on each team. The value of a master-taker is high, and even more so in an England squad with so few.
It would be reductive to consider Toney only a penalty taker, of course. Let’s be frank: we don’t watch the Saudi Pro League. We’ve barely seen Toney kick a ball in the past two years. But 41 goals and 11 assists are an impressive haul, even at a lesser level. Toney is only 30 years old and clearly still has something to offer on a football pitch.
“I had fantastic feedback from his club coach [Matthias Jaissle], who was my player, about his role there, about his ability, about his fitness,” Tuchel explained. “We could see that he still collects the numbers. I think he has very special skills that could help us, meaning the scenario when we are chasing a result, when we’re chasing a goal, I think he can be a very valuable addition to Harry Kane.”
Toney is not just a penalty specialist but a striker who thrives in the box, who relishes the battle with centre-halves and can read crosses raining into the area. “He has a natural presence within the box,” Tuchel added. “He’s a natural finisher. He can help us with set pieces. He’s very strong and very good in using his body. And not to forget, he’s a world-class penalty taker.”
Tuchel talks about balancing “profiles” – an attacking full-back and a defensive one, for example – and combined with Ollie Watkins, it is a nice blend beyond Kane.
Watkins is the only England player prepared to continually run behind, and that knack brought about the semi-final winner against the Netherlands at Euro 2024, which sent the entire country into a state of blissful headloss, including Watkins himself. Toney is the battering-ram forward in the squad, the guy who can occupy defenders, be a handful in the box, and who can cause that crucial bit of chaos.
He is England’s failsafe, the solution to a problem they don’t yet know. And perhaps this is the odd part about Toney: he is the one player England need to have, but hope they never need to use.
