All about England’s penalty curse

England was knocked out of FIFA World Cup 2022 by France in the quarterfinal on Saturday at the Al-Bayt Stadium after their star player, Harry Kane missed the opportunity of an equalizer by kicking the second penalty over the crossbar. The missed opportunity came just minutes away from the stoppage time.

This broke a lot of British football fans’ hearts, who took to social media to talk about a probable penalty curse that England might be plagued with. Incidentally, England has only won 1 out of 4 penalty shootouts that they have had to face in the knockout stages of the World Cup so far.

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“This is probably the best team that England has ever sent to the world cup.

Sad to see them go out over a penalty once again

The penalty curse continues for England.

#FIFAWorldCup2022,” one of the fans said, while another noted, “England and the penalty curse continues, must be a record how many times a penalty miss has cost England.”

One more stated, “England need to fix this curse with penalties bro, another year more pain.” Another commented, “England has this curse when it comes to penalty in important games like this. And southgate takes in Grealish to score more goals with 2 minutes left???” One more said, “Did England’s Penalty Shootout Curse just metastasize into a Regulation Time Penalty Curse?” A user said, “England & penalties are a curse aint it, but bringing your best attacking players on with 5 minutes to go is a shambles from Southgate.”

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Speaking to ITV after the loss, English football midfielder Jordan Henderson said that people should not shower hate on Kane for missing a penalty. 

“We know how many penalties Harry Kane has scored for us. He scored the first one. How many goals he’s contributed for us to even get here. He’ll be stronger for it in the long run, I’m sure. He’s a world-class striker and our captain. We wouldn’t be here without him,” he said.

He added: 

“Unfortunately it wasn’t our night. You have to give credit to France, who are a good team, but I still felt it was there for us to win tonight.”