Jordan Pickford: from non-league novice to World Cup hero in six years

The England goalkeeper’s display against Colombia did not shock those who worked with him at Darlington and Alfreton

Jordan Pickford is not a man for false modesty and most certainly does not do self-deprecation. If his apparently supreme confidence seems slightly at odds with assorted accounts of the England and Everton goalkeeper as a quiet, almost shy, teenager it perhaps stems partly from loan stints in the tough-as-teak non-league habitats of Darlington and Alfreton.

It did not take Pickford long to work out that self-assurance would constitute an essential element in his armoury as he ventured out from Sunderland’s academy and strove to survive in a new, rough-around-the-edges “men’s world”. As the 24-year-old puts it: “I learnt quite a lot from getting battered by fully grown blokes.”

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