Eberechi Eze has insisted he will not shy away from taking a penalty for England at the 2026 World Cup, declaring “why wouldn’t I?” when asked whether his miss in the Champions League final shootout against Paris Saint-Germain has dented his confidence from twelve yards.
The 27-year-old attacking midfielder sent his spot-kick wide as Arsenal lost the May 30 final in Budapest, ending the club’s wait for a first European Cup in the cruellest fashion. Yet speaking from the England camp ahead of Thomas Tuchel’s opening Group fixture, Eze made clear that the disappointment of Hungary will not reshape either his technique or his appetite for the responsibility.
“If there is a penalty to take, I’ll be there again,” Eze said. “Why wouldn’t I? You don’t get better by hiding.”
The Budapest miss and the pattern behind it
Eze’s failure in the Puskás Aréna was Arsenal’s third miss of a shootout that finished 5-3 to PSG after 120 minutes of stalemate. His delivery — the trademark stuttering, hop-skip run-up that has become one of the most distinctive in the English game — drifted a foot wide of Lucas Chevalier’s right-hand post. Mikel Arteta consoled him on the centre circle for fully two minutes.
It was not an isolated stumble. Eze had two softly-struck penalties saved during the 2025 Premier League campaign while still at Crystal Palace, both against goalkeepers who read the run-up — Alisson at Anfield in October and Nick Pope at St James’ Park in February. Three high-profile misses in under nine months would, for many takers, prompt a rebuild from the ground up.
Eze sees it differently. “People look at the misses and think the technique is broken. It isn’t. The run-up is mine, the strike is mine. Two of those penalties I hit exactly where I wanted and the keeper was just better. The other I got wrong. That’s football. You don’t tear the whole thing up for one bad night, even if the night is Budapest.”
Why Tuchel still wants him on the list
The German has spent the build-up to the tournament drilling shootout scenarios at St George’s Park, with Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham, Cole Palmer, Bukayo Saka and Eze understood to be the five identified takers should England again find themselves in a knockout-round lottery. Tuchel inherited a penalty record from Gareth Southgate’s tenure that read four shootouts and two wins — improved on the Three Lions’ historical misery but still scarred by the Euro 2020 final defeat to Italy.
Tuchel’s reasoning for keeping Eze in the top five is straightforward: technique under pressure is rare, and the player who has the courage to step forward after missing is more valuable than the one who has never been tested. Eze’s overall conversion rate from the spot remains a respectable 78 per cent across club football, and his ability to disguise direction with the stutter has produced more goals than misses.
“You learn more from the ones that go wrong than the ones that go in,” Eze said. “Budapest hurt. It still hurts. But the next one comes around and you take it, or you tell the manager you don’t want it. I’m not telling him that.”
England’s shootout problem, and a chance to rewrite it
England have lost more World Cup penalty shootouts than any other nation — three, against West Germany in 1990, Argentina in 1998 and Portugal in 2006 — a record that has shaped a generation’s view of the national team’s mental fragility. The 2018 victory over Colombia in Moscow under Southgate was meant to end that narrative; the loss to Italy at Wembley three years later proved it had only been paused.
Tuchel’s squad arrives in North America with a different temperament. Bellingham, Kane and Palmer have all converted high-pressure penalties in Champions League knockout rounds within the past 18 months. Saka, who missed the decisive kick at Euro 2020, scored from the spot in Arsenal’s quarter-final win over Real Madrid in April. Eze’s willingness to volunteer again, rather than retreat into the pack, fits the culture Tuchel has been trying to build.
“The five who step up in a World Cup shootout are heroes if they score and human beings if they don’t,” Tuchel said this week. “Ebs is one of the five. He has earned that. The miss in Budapest does not change anything for me. If anything, it tells me more about him than a goal would have.”
England open their World Cup campaign against Croatia on Sunday, with a knockout-round shootout still a fortnight away at the earliest. Eze, by his own admission, is already at peace with the possibility. “If it comes, it comes,” he said. “I’ll be ready. I was ready in Budapest. I’ll be readier next time.”
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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