England needed penalty shootout joy so badly, says Gary Neville

Gary Neville stressed how important it was for England to finally end decades of penalty shootout agony in their World Cup win over Colombia.

Gareth Southgate’s side recovered from conceding an injury-time leveller to Yerry Mina to triumph on penalties with Eric Dier striking the crucial spot-kick after Jordan Pickford had saved from Carlos Bacca.

England had previously lost six out of seven shootouts in major tournaments, but former England player and coach Neville heralded a “big moment” for the country.

“We’ve suffered too much. We needed this so badly as a nation. We couldn’t have gone out again,” he told ITV.

“It’s brilliant to see an opposition team suffering. I don’t mean that in a nasty way. We’ve had too much.

“We’ve had five or six of these where we have come out of the wrong side and Gareth Southgate will think back 22 years and think ‘I needed that’.

“It’s a big moment He deserved it.”

Southgate made eight changes for the defeat against Belgium last Thursday, a result which paired them with Colombia rather than Japan in the last 16 – but now sees them face Sweden rather than Brazil in the quarter-finals.

And Neville was delighted that the manager’s gamble had paid dividends.

“What I’m most happy about for Gareth is that he took a risk against Belgium,” he added.

“He believed in this approach and sometimes when you have the right approach you don’t get the right results to go with it.

“If we’d lost people would have said he was getting carried away and should have concentrated on momentum.

“He made a bold decision, he made a risky decision and there was a sense of opinion from a lot of people saying it was the wrong decision.

“It is now justified. He has a quarter-final against Sweden versus a quarter-final against Brazil. Sweden are a dog of a team to play against and it will be tough on Saturday, but they haven’t got Neymar, Coutinho, Jesus or Firmino off the bench.

“Gareth believed in his approach and has now got the result that goes with it. That doesn’t always happen for a coach. He deserves it.”

England had looked destined to win 1-0 through Harry Kane’s 57th-minute penalty, but Neville believes that the experience of winning a shoot-out will prove more beneficial to the young squad.

“They have put themselves right through it by conceding that last-minute goal.

“But having come through it in the way in which we have in terms of winning on penalties they will come out of it better than if they had just won 1-0 and the mature, professional and really good performance that it was.

“Having come through that difficult moment, the first period of extra-time, and then coming through a penalty-shoot-out, the confidence, belief and inner resilience will be so much more than if we’d just won 1-0.

“A lot of them are still very young. Eric Dier said he’d never been in a situation like that in his life – but he has now. That is a big learning.”

(c) Sky News 2018: England needed penalty shootout joy so badly, says Gary Neville