Who refuses to accept punishment?

England advanced to the quarter-finals of the European Championship after beating Switzerland 1-1 in regular time and extra-time on penalties, but the biggest mystery remains – which of Phil Foden and Harry Kane refused to take the penalty.

It all started with a post-match message from reserve Trent Alexander-Arnold to his family. “He doesn’t want to fight,” Trent told his relatives. That whittled the options down to two.

Harry Kane and Foden were substituted shortly before the end of extra time, with Kane being thrown to the England bench by Akanji and injured. Alexander-Arnold took Foden’s place.

Goalkeeper Jordan Pickford’s water bottle once again attracted everyone’s attention. On it, the England goalkeeper and coaching staff wrote down all the possible Swiss players and how to react.

For Manuel Akanji, the instructions were precise and clear: jump to the left. And that’s exactly what happened. The goalkeeper easily saved the shot from the “Manchester City” defender. It was the only penalty missed by both teams out of 10.

It’s interesting how that conclusion was reached, though, because according to Akanji’s career statistics, he has never taken a penalty in regular time.

And twice took part in the 11-meter run to decide the European stage. Then he shot twice, both to the right of the goalkeeper – scoring against France and missing against Spain. Perhaps his team-mates Phil Foden, Kyle Walker or Declan Rice were asked. Cole Palmer, who played for Manchester City a few months ago and later moved to Chelsea, is also under suspicion.

The next performer was Fabian Scher. The bottle said: deceptive right and sharp left. However, Pickford did not do as instructed but the opposite. Scher scored without any problem.

The third goal was scored by Xherdan Shaqiri, who almost scored from a corner in extra time. For him, the instruction was – jump to the left. Pickford did it, and the Swiss did it from the same corner, but he worked hard and was extremely accurate and scored.

The bottle didn’t just help Zeki Amdouni’s attack. It said: Hold on, dive left, low. However, the Swiss was right in the middle of the goal and had no problem scoring a goal as well.

The bottle also has the words of Ludogorets striker Kovadwo Dua, who did not play. The instructions for him are: Hold on, react. In other words, you must follow the attacker until the last moment.

England won the first penalty shootout in a European tournament since 1996. They then defeated Spain 4-2 after a 0-0 draw in regular time and extra time. They then lost four games in a row, including the Wembley final against Italy in the continental championship.

Pickford’s notes are nothing new. Back at the 2017 European Junior Championships, he was spotted hiding notes in his socks during the semi-final.

Then came the bottle time. She became famous in the 2018 World Cup, when Pickford saved Carlos Baqi’s penalty in the quarter-finals, and England won the World Cup for the first time after taking a penalty kick. Then the note on the bottle came on stage.

Shortly before the World Cup, Pickford also wrote his homework for the friendly match against the United States. However, England eventually won 3-0 and did not receive a penalty.

Pickford saved two penalties for Italy in their European title-winning campaign, but that did little to detract from the performances of Marcus Rashford, Jaden Sancho and Bukayo Saka, who all missed chances as they clinched the title at Wembley.

However, in his club “Everton”, Pickford reached unknown heights. In the national team, there were only annotations on the bottle. However, before the 2021 match against West Ham United, pictograms of Mark Noble, Michail Antonio and Declan Rice’s final penalty were taken on the bottle.

Pickford was clearly aware of the Swiss’ fears when he saved Josip Durmic’s sixth penalty in the Nations League Championship third-place match in Guimaraes on June 9, 2019, helping England to a 6-5 win.

The match against Switzerland also marked the 100th England game for Southgate and his assistant Steve Holland. Southgate is the third man in history to reach that mark, after Walter Winterbottom (139) and Sir Alf Ramsey (113), and the first since Ramsey beat Wales 1-0 in 1972. Gareth holds the record for most England caps – 100 as a manager, 37 as a youth team coach, 57 as a player, and 194 caps in total. In his 100th match, he had 60 wins, 24 draws and 16 losses, with a goal difference of 209:68. Sir Alf Ramsey had 63 wins, 23 draws and 14 losses in his first 100 games, while Winterbottom had 59 wins, 23 draws and 18 losses.

Under Southgate, England are the only team in Europe to have reached at least the quarter-finals of the last four major tournaments. He also holds the major league record with 24 caps, ahead of Sir Bobby Robson (15), Sven-Goran Eriksson and Walter Winterbottom (14 each) and Sir Alf Ramsey (12), with only Ramsey having a higher win percentage at 66.7%.

The last European final was the first time England reached the final since winning the World Cup in 1966, and the 2018 World Cup quarter-finals was their first time reaching the European final in 28 years.

In terms of winning percentage, Southgate ranks fourth in the English coach rankings with a winning percentage of 60.6. Fabio Capello ranks first with 66.7 points, followed by Ramsey (61.1 points) and Glenn Hoddle (60.7 points).

He ranks seventh in the world in major tournament appearances, behind Löw (38), Deshaat (34), Schön (29), Santos (28), Hiddink (27) and Lagerback (26).

His five favourite players are Harry Kane (79 appearances under his management), Kyle Walker (68), John Stones (66), Jordan Pickford (66) and Harry Maguire (63). Kane (60), Raheem Sterling (18), Marcus Rashford (16), Bukayo Saka (12) and Maguire (7) have scored the most goals.