Jordan Pickford: England's Key Goalkeeper in World Cup 2024
Jordan Pickford walked into this World Cup under a cloud. Not a storm, but a nagging doubt. The kind that lingers when the standards you’ve set for yourself are sky-high and the early evidence suggests you’re a touch below them.
Against Croatia, he wasn’t bad. He just wasn’t Jordan Pickford. He got something on Martin Baturina’s strike but not enough, the ball squirming in for 1-1. His passing, usually a weapon, wobbled. Cameras caught Thomas Tuchel in Dallas tearing into his distribution from the touchline. It was a small moment, but it fed a wider narrative: England’s No.1 looked a little off.
Ghana did not help. Pickford came haring out of his box, missed the ball and crashed into Prince Adu. On another night, with another referee, he’s walking. Only the force of the contact from the Ghanaian forward seemed to spare him a red card in a lifeless 0-0 that raised more questions than answers.
Then came DR Congo in the last 32. Brian Cipenga beat him at his near post in Atlanta, a finish that goalkeepers hate to see replayed. Had Harry Kane not turned the game on its head in the final 15 minutes, the inquest would have started with Pickford. Three games in, three moments that chipped away at the trust he has spent years building.
Which is why what happened at the Azteca mattered so much.
A night in Mexico City
England knew what awaited them in Mexico City: altitude, noise, long spells without the ball. This was always going to be a game where the goalkeeper had to stand tall. Pickford didn’t just stand tall. He bristled.
Mexico’s first real sight of goal fell to Raul Jimenez at the near post. The No.9 thought he’d done enough. Pickford snapped down low to his left, strong wrist, corner kick. Jimenez tried again before the break, another header, this time destined for the roof of the net. Pickford read it, adjusted, and palmed it over. Had that gone in, England would have trudged into half-time at 2-2, the air sucked out of their precious lead. Instead, they clung to 2-1.
Then the final half-hour turned into his kind of chaos.
Pickford barked at his centre-backs, shoved his full-backs into position, claimed crosses like they were his personal property. Mexico slung in delivery after delivery. By the end, he had five punches, three big saves and a handful of clearances that don’t make highlight reels but win knockout games.
He wasn’t pretty. He was relentless.
“He’s not pleasing on the eye, but my god he’s effective, and you can trust him, and in the big moments he wants to stand there and be that guy,” Joe Hart said on the BBC afterwards. “That’s massive to have in a team.
“To be the England number one for so long, and to keep improving and stepping up in a big game, I’m so pleased he had that night tonight and he deserves every bit of praise he’s going to get.”
Hart hit on a truth that has followed Pickford for years: he does not get the love his record demands.
Tuchel himself had underlined before the tournament that nobody’s place was safe, not even in goal. Dean Henderson’s form for Crystal Palace kept the conversation alive. The implication was clear: Pickford was first choice, but not untouchable.
Look at the numbers, though, and it’s hard to argue against him.
England’s constant in an era of change
Since his debut in November 2017, Pickford has been the one fixed point in an England side that has evolved around him. Under Sir Gareth Southgate, he nailed down the No.1 shirt and never let it go. Five straight major tournaments, every match started.
If he lines up against Norway in Miami on Saturday, he will become England’s most capped World Cup player, surpassing Peter Shilton’s 17 appearances. That’s not just longevity. That’s trust at the very top level.
Shilton himself has seen enough.
“I think he’s probably the best since I finished with England,” the former goalkeeper said. “If you look at the record, World Cup semi-finals, penalty saves... I think he’s probably up there. I would put him up there as the best. Obviously, David Seaman, he’s very close. But I think, generally, looking at his overall situation, I think he’s probably the best since I played.”
The resume backs it up. In 2018, Pickford helped drag England through a World Cup that rewrote the team’s relationship with penalty shootouts and knockout tension. He saved a crucial spot-kick in the last-16 shootout against Colombia, then produced a Player-of-the-Match display in the quarter-final win over Sweden.
At Euro 2020, he again did his part in the final, saving two penalties against Italy at Wembley. The night ended in heartbreak, but not because of him. Four years later, at Euro 2024, he denied Manuel Akanji in the shootout as England edged Switzerland in another quarter-final.
Four saves from 14 penalties faced across World Cup and Euros shootouts. Those are elite numbers on the biggest stages.
“When it comes to a penalty shootout, I don’t think I would have anyone else,” Ben Foster said in 2024. “I reckon at that moment in time when you get a penalty shootout, he’s genuinely thinking, ‘It’s showtime, baby’. If you could take a blood reading or a sample of how much adrenaline is coursing through his body at that moment, I reckon it would be right at the top, right at the limit. It’s like he’s had six double espressos.”
That personality, that sense of theatre, can grate with some. It also wins tournaments.
In open play, the wildness is largely gone. Since 2018, statistical models credit him with just one error leading directly to a goal for England. For all the noise around his technique and temperament, he has become one of the most reliable goalkeepers in international football.
The Everton crucible
The same story runs through his club career. Pickford is the Premier League’s longest-serving starting goalkeeper, close to a decade as Everton’s No.1. That is not a job for the faint-hearted.
He has been named Everton’s Player of the Season three years running, from 2022 to 2024. Since the start of the 2022-23 campaign, Opta numbers show he has prevented more goals than any other goalkeeper in the league. In a team that has flirted with relegation more than once, that is the difference between survival and disaster.
Of course, the mistakes are burned into the memory. The rash lunge that wrecked Virgil van Dijk’s ACL in the Merseyside derby will follow him for the rest of his career. There have been other high-profile errors, the kind that get clipped and shared and replayed.
Yet every Everton manager since 2017 has stuck with him. That loyalty is not sentimental. It is based on training-ground standards, dressing-room influence and matchday performances that the wider world often overlooks.
Pickford is a leader at Goodison Park. He has bailed Everton out time and again, clawing away shots that had no right to be saved, holding his nerve while everything around him shook.
That is the goalkeeper England will lean on in Miami.
Haaland, history and a familiar duel
Waiting for him there is a familiar figure. Erling Haaland has treated Everton like a personal scoring drill since arriving at Manchester City, hitting seven goals past Pickford. Only four other goalkeepers have picked the ball out of their net more often from the Norwegian’s boots.
Haaland arrives in Miami in frightening form. He has scored in each of his last 14 competitive games for Norway, 27 goals in that run. Against Brazil in the last 16, he barely touched the ball yet still scored twice, dismantling the Selecao almost on his own.
He is, right now, the most ruthless striker on the planet. By some distance.
England know it. Pickford knows it. He also knows this is the kind of occasion that has always brought the best out of him.
The Three Lions are narrow favourites, but the context is awkward. Norway have taken the harder route and look fresher, their win over Brazil far more straightforward than England’s scrap with Mexico at altitude. The margins will be thin. One misjudged cross, one mistimed dive, one moment of brilliance from Haaland could tilt the whole tie.
That is where Pickford comes in.
Tournament after tournament, when England’s nerve has frayed and the tension has thickened, he has stepped forward. Penalty shootouts, aerial bombardments, late onslaughts – he has made a habit of answering the call when the pressure peaks.
On Saturday in Miami, with Haaland lurking and history on the line, England will ask him to do it again.
