Joe Hart ready to end England's penalty woe at Euro 2016
The 2012 European championships
were Joe Hart’s first tournament as England’s No 1 goalkeeper and when
it came down to that penalty shoot-out in Kiev against Italy, the young
buck between the posts for his country, 25 years old and full of
confidence, was well-beaten by Andrea Pirlo.
It turned into one of enduring images of England’s callowness at the sharp end of tournaments, Hart doing his very best to put the old master off his stride, and Pirlo with the pressure on and his team-mate Riccardo Montolivo already having missed, responded with arguably football’s most woundingly casual Panenka.
It turned into one of enduring images of England’s callowness at the sharp end of tournaments, Hart doing his very best to put the old master off his stride, and Pirlo with the pressure on and his team-mate Riccardo Montolivo already having missed, responded with arguably football’s most woundingly casual Panenka.
Four years on, and 58 caps down
the line, Hart is second in experience to only Wayne Rooney and James
Milner in the squad, and he knows a lot more about penalties now.
The Manchester City goalkeeper has accumulated an impressive array of scalps from 12 yards for club and country since he was sent the wrong way by Pirlo at Euro 2012.
Perhaps the most prestigious of them all being a great save to his left from Lionel Messi in the Champions League for Manchester City against Barcelona in February 2013.
That turned into a great month for Hart when he also stopped a spot-kick from another master of the craft, Frank Lampard, at Stamford Bridge.
The Manchester City goalkeeper has accumulated an impressive array of scalps from 12 yards for club and country since he was sent the wrong way by Pirlo at Euro 2012.
Perhaps the most prestigious of them all being a great save to his left from Lionel Messi in the Champions League for Manchester City against Barcelona in February 2013.
That turned into a great month for Hart when he also stopped a spot-kick from another master of the craft, Frank Lampard, at Stamford Bridge.
February 2013 also featured that incredible penalty save from Ronaldinho at Wembley when
Hart, on international duty for England against Brazil, got up to stop
the rebound and then a third attempt. In April this year in Paris, Hart
went down low to his right to save one from Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the
Champions League and you have to fancy that his track record will be in
the mind of any potential penalty taker against England this month in
France.
When we met at St George’s Park
this month, Hart was clear that the penalty saves are no coincidence –
he prepares as best he can, and he backs himself every time to guess
right. “I have always had the mentality of thinking what is the best
moment [to dive],” he says. “Of believing in what I am doing. I have got
it wrong many, many times but I have always believed I know what they
are thinking or what they are going to do.
“There are different ways of looking at it … I can quite easily go on a streak of not saving a penalty, that is just how it goes. I try to put as much pressure as I can on the forward. I realise it is not easy to take a penalty. It is once it hits the net. The whole build-up there is usually arguments with the referee previous to it, there are bodies everywhere. I try and build as much pressure as I can and be in control as much as I can.”
“There are different ways of looking at it … I can quite easily go on a streak of not saving a penalty, that is just how it goes. I try to put as much pressure as I can on the forward. I realise it is not easy to take a penalty. It is once it hits the net. The whole build-up there is usually arguments with the referee previous to it, there are bodies everywhere. I try and build as much pressure as I can and be in control as much as I can.”
Does that mean that he would try
to disrupt the process of a penalty-taker composing himself? “Not
disrupt. A penalty-taker for a Premier League or an international team
is usually quite composed, organised kind of player. The last one would
have been Zlatan and there was no point trying to disrupt him, do you
know what I mean? There is only so much I can do.
“I went to my right. I waited until his head was down so I knew his decision was made. Some players look at you all the way so you can’t move. Some players have already made their decision .. everyone is different in how they do it. It is weird that with such a simple task. You look at someone like Eden Hazard who literally stares into your eyes and doesn’t even look at the ball – there are different ways of doing it and different ways of saving it.”
Hart has never faced Hazard from the spot but he says that the Belgian is playing his own game of poker with the goalkeeper and generally waits to see which way he dives before he strikes the ball. At some point a decision has to be made one way or the other, Hart says – “if he [the penalty-taker] wants to belt it in the corner and I am waiting until he kicks it, I’ve got no chance.”
“I went to my right. I waited until his head was down so I knew his decision was made. Some players look at you all the way so you can’t move. Some players have already made their decision .. everyone is different in how they do it. It is weird that with such a simple task. You look at someone like Eden Hazard who literally stares into your eyes and doesn’t even look at the ball – there are different ways of doing it and different ways of saving it.”
Hart has never faced Hazard from the spot but he says that the Belgian is playing his own game of poker with the goalkeeper and generally waits to see which way he dives before he strikes the ball. At some point a decision has to be made one way or the other, Hart says – “if he [the penalty-taker] wants to belt it in the corner and I am waiting until he kicks it, I’ve got no chance.”
It is easy to forget that Hart
has been around a long time – two months before Euro 2004 he made his
senior debut for his hometown club Shrewsbury Town in the Conference one
day after his 17th birthday. He had been on the bench for them aged 15
and his affectionate recall of those simple days in Shropshire training
every day in his school holidays is genuine.
By the age of 18 he was
Shrewsbury’s first-choice goalkeeper and we go through the list of games
from that season of 2005-2006, which feature an impressive 11 clean
sheets. Hart recalls a 4-3 defeat to Rochdale that featured two goals
apiece from Grant Holt and Rickie Lambert. “It was a crazy game but I
loved it. Even though we lost it was just an exciting game to be a part
of.
He was, even then a teen prodigy, but growing up in Shrewsbury he said he did not have many peers in elite football and just assumed that what he was doing was normal. Did he ever expect to be within three clean sheets of Gordon Banks’ 35 for England, or eight from David Seaman’s 40? “No! I didn’t give it a second thought. I was still trying to find what I was doing and I was loving the standard I was at. It was my peak at the time … when I moved to Manchester City that was off my radar, that was my dream.”
He was, even then a teen prodigy, but growing up in Shrewsbury he said he did not have many peers in elite football and just assumed that what he was doing was normal. Did he ever expect to be within three clean sheets of Gordon Banks’ 35 for England, or eight from David Seaman’s 40? “No! I didn’t give it a second thought. I was still trying to find what I was doing and I was loving the standard I was at. It was my peak at the time … when I moved to Manchester City that was off my radar, that was my dream.”
When he started for City against Real Madrid in the second leg of the Champions League semi-final he
was the only English starter across the four XIs at that stage of the
competition, compared with 12 Spaniards. How does that bode for
England’s chances at Euro 2016?
“It’s obviously not a great stat. I wouldn’t say that many of the people who will be in the Euros were playing either. Quite a lot of South Americans dominated. It is what it is … it can either be a great achievement for myself or it can be a real disappointment for English football. We have got some Champions League winners in our England team. We have none winning on the international stage but no-one can claim that for a long time. That’s something we are looking to change.”
“It’s obviously not a great stat. I wouldn’t say that many of the people who will be in the Euros were playing either. Quite a lot of South Americans dominated. It is what it is … it can either be a great achievement for myself or it can be a real disappointment for English football. We have got some Champions League winners in our England team. We have none winning on the international stage but no-one can claim that for a long time. That’s something we are looking to change.”
“I wouldn’t say people would know too much about us in terms of us as a team. They know individual players but the team that is potentially going to start against Russia might not have been seen before in England shirts. We have three weeks to prepare 23 good players in good form and mould time into a team that thinks and works together.”
No comments:
Post a Comment