Carlisle United manager Paul Simpson has paid tribute to the Football Association’s work on penalties after his side’s 5-4 penalty shoot-out win at Wembley.
The Blues had drawn 1-1 with Stockport County and the League Two play-off final was decided from the penalty spot.
Simpson had previously led England’s U19s and U20s, taking the latter side to a World Cup win in South Korea in 2017.
After his side’s Wembley joy Simpson told TGG: “I want to give the FA a lot of credit here. In my time there we had a guy from the analysis department called Chris Markham who did a huge study on penalties and how to go about it.
“He came up with this thing ‘you can’t actually practice penalties, you can only prepare for them.’ Chris put a brilliant presentation together that we used when I went to South Korea for the World Cup. All the other development teams have used it; the seniors used it when they won their penalty shoot-out.
“We have prepared for penalties over the last two weeks and it was all about just having a really clear plan of what you wanted to do and sticking to it. The other side of it is our goalkeepers have probably faced a minimum of 100 penalties over the last two weeks, so they develop a plan as well.
“Tomáš (Holý) and Mick Kelly have improved over the last two weeks and the reward comes at Wembley.”
Markham was Game Insights Lead at the FA from 2017 to 2021, under the overall charge of Head of Performance Analysis and Insight Rhys Long. Markham is now Technical Performance Director at Bolton.
Rob Edwards, manager of Luton Town, also paid tribute to Markham’s work after his side’s win at Wembley in the Championship play-off final.
”I know myself and (assistant) Richie (Kyle) both worked at the FA,” he said. “There’s a lot of work the FA put into the penalty side. Speaking to a lot of people who have been a part of the play-offs and penalties and getting their footage and leaning on their experiences, we did that.
“And in the end, it was a perfect shoot-out for us.”
