Jorginho exorcises ghosts of Euro 2020/1 with game-winning penalty for Chelsea against Jordan Pickford

A first-half penalty was just enough for a 1-0 win at Everton for Chelsea on Saturday, with Jorginho converting successfully in first-half stoppage time after Ben Chilwell drew a foul in the area.

“For us, we win 1-0 from Jorginho. Very classic!”

-Thomas Tuchel; source: Mail

While we’ve certainly become used to Jorginho scoring penalties for Chelsea — 18 of his 20 Premier League goals have come from the spot, including the last 16 in a row (with 3 misses along the way) — the last time he faced Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, the outcome was a lot less successful on a personal level. England’s first-choice goalkeeper stifled our Vice-captain last summer in the Euro 2020/1 final (though Italy would go on to win anyway).

Jorginho, well-known for his hop-skip penalty technique, could only look to the heavens after Pickford saved his penalty back then. So it was quite noticeable in today’s effort that he did not utilize his trademark technique.

That was not coincidence.

“Of course you think about it, you worry during the week, thinking what the keeper might do at that moment. I took a decision and fortunately it was the right decision this time.”

“Definitely, for me penalty is 70-75 per cent in the head, so I thought a lot, I trained and fortunately today it went well.”

-Jorginho, source: Sky Sports

Considering that Jorgi has had two more high-profile and decisive misses for Italy against Switzerland during World Cup qualification, and he also missed one for Chelsea late last season against West Ham, hopefully he can get back into his groove now — be they with mind games or more hop-skips!