Practice makes perfect for ice-cool Ivan Toney, insists penalty expert GEIR JORDET… after the Brentford star held his nerve from 12 yards in England’s shootout win over Switzerland

Ivan Toney’s penalty was brilliant, beautiful and an example of what I call the ‘goalkeeper-dependent technique’ in my book, where the penalty-taker waits for the goalie to make the first move. More and more players are turning to it.

There is a logic to it because you take away the uncertainty of ‘Will the goalkeeper guess correctly?’ — you adapt to where he is going. 

But it requires incredible emotional composure. What we saw from Toney, not even looking at the ball as he took the fourth penalty, was absurd.

He was up against a goalkeeper in Yann Sommer who stood still for a very, very long time.

That can be a challenge but Toney had a Plan B, confident that he could find the bottom-left corner regardless.

The Brentford star benefitted from getting a run out in extra-time before taking his spot kick

It is said Toney practises penalties in training from 13 yards, not 12. You want practice to be harder than competition, and this is a clever way of doing it.

It is brilliant that Gareth Southgate and his staff learned from the experience of the Euro 2020 final. Then, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho were brought on in the 120th minute of the final before missing their penalties. But Toney got 11 minutes under his belt.

Another key factor was how long each player waited to shoot after the referee’s whistle. 

Usually, England rush their kicks (0.28sec on average after the whistle in shootouts) but here Toney waited seven seconds, Trent Alexander-Arnold six and a half and Bukayo Saka a huge eight seconds. Data shows the less you rush, the more successful you are. It was a structured approach and they executed this shootout by the book — my book, I hope!