Have you actually read the article? In it Stuart Pearce talks about how in previous tournaments the manager would simply leave it until full time to decide who was taking the penalties and based the decision on who fancied it. This time there is actual statistical analysis done to determine the best 5 to take penalties.

Considering that as a nation we've got a history of losing in shoot outs I'd say it's a quite appropriate piece.

I bloody hope so

You need to have all those five players on the pitch at the end of extra time though, else you're back to making it up on the hoof again.

I'd hope if he's gone to the trouble of having the entire squad practice to ensure he picks his best 5 he'll also have an idea of who is next in line.

That'll be the five. And I'd imagine it'd be in this order should we come to it.

Lampard
Gerrard
Rooney
Milner
Barry

Defoe.

Quarter Finals (in semi final set up also) will be:

QF1: Uruguay/South Korea VS United States of America/Ghana
QF2: Netherlands/Slovakia VS Brazil/Chile

QF3: Germany/England VS Argentina/Mexico
QF4: Paraguay/Japan VS Spain/Portugal

That may get rid of a few ghosts.

Sh-tting myself.

That's how it should be.

You can't name your 5 strongest takers and leave it at that. A player may get injured or sent off. More importantly, a player may miss a simple chance to win the game which f*cks his head up.

Only 16 of us left now.

It wont go to penalties.