Throughout Euro 2025, Lionesses legend Jordan Nobbs will be writing exclusively for The i Paper
Nothing, absolutely nothing can prepare you for that walk from the halfway line to the penalty spot.
Your head’s starting to wander, you’re starting to make different decisions. The Lionesses’ shootout against Sweden was just insane but you see the best in the world miss penalties.
When I was away with England, we would start to practise them when we got to the later stages of tournaments. At the end of a training session, you’d get into two separate teams to make it competitive, everyone will watch – you’ll have the whistle and everything, sometimes you’ll do the walk from the halfway line just to get the feeling. But it’s nothing like everyone in the stands watching, some of them booing.
You might speak to the goalkeeping coach for advice if necessary, but the practise is normally to get used to your run-up and where you want to hit it. Is the goalkeeper weaker at diving to their right or left? They’ll have stats on that, but as a penalty-taker it’s more about your mindset. Repetition is always the key but you do need some variation. Goalkeepers now have on their water bottle which side players are going to go.
When you’re walking to put the ball down, you don’t want to change your decision – you need to know before you get there. Chloe Kelly’s a great example – she’s done the run and skip technique a million times, she’s already got her go-to. She’s cool as a cucumber when it comes to penalties. Lucy Bronze talked about the maths, the statistic where it’s best to hit it down the middle.
By the time it came to pens, some of England’s best penalty-takers had gone off. Georgia Stanway has dealt with a lot of penalties under pressure. You could really see for both sides that there were young players who hadn’t taken a penalty in a major tournament before.
But you have to get through the 90 minutes first so you can’t even think about penalties – that’s why Sarina Wiegman had to make her subs when she did.
It will be a thought who are we going to have on if it did go to penalties again in the semi-final or final – you might be able to do it once but if it happens again, you want your takers to be confident.
As a player it’s also your responsibility to say look, I don’t want to take one, if that’s the case. It’s for the best for the whole team.
It’s not as easy as it looks from the outside. I’ve scored penalties and I’ve missed them and it’s a horrible feeling but credit to every player that takes one. I can imagine the Sweden girls will be non-stop thinking about the misses.
The blessing in disguise is that England have now had some preparation and those players have had that experience of taking one in a very big game. And I was always useless at remembering what number we were on, or if we scored are we through, you’re just so focused on the moment.
When I was at Aston Villa, I played with Hannah Hampton. When we used to take penalties at her in training, she was unbelievable. As soon as it went to pens I knew we had a great chance because of her reach and power to move across that line. What a massive performance by her.
It’s Italy next in the semi-final. Cristiana Girelli is a real aerial threat. Lots of them play together at club level so they’ve developed as a nation. The manager allows them to have fun and express themselves and that’s why they’ve made it so far.
They’ve done incredibly well to get where they are. But do I think England will beat them? 100 per cent.
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