How Kieran Trippier went from mischievous midfielder to World Cup's best full-back

For many players - especially those wearing the Three Lions - the doubts would have been inhibiting the practiced routines, and the memorised habits of David Ospina. Jordan Henderson's spot kick had been saved, and the England fans vastly outnumbered by Colombians in Moscow knew what their team tended to do at this stage. Manager Gareth Southgate, the taker of a penalty that was easily corralled by Germany's Andreas Kopke at Euro '96, knew this more than anybody.

True, Mateus Uribe cracked his following effort off the crossbar, but Kieran Trippier then stepped up to take his first penalty in senior football in last week's round of 16 clash. A shameful history of no penalty shootout victories for England at World Cups and decades of national team underachievement were against him.

He only broke his determined stare at the ball once for a momentary glance at Ospina, and then smashed it into the top corner. England players don't normally take penalties like that.

"He (Trippier) very much wanted to stay at Manchester City because he had total belief in himself. That's why I loved him as a kid," Jim Cassell, the former head of the club's youth academy, told theScore. "He thought he was ready all the time."

Cassell developed 40 players who represented City's first team between 1998 and 2009, but Trippier wasn't one of them. The 27-year-old is instead one of the 44 who went on to enjoy professional careers elsewhere, as he reluctantly accepted that he wasn't wanted by a nouveau-riche outfit preferring Micah Richards and Pablo Zabaleta as its right-backs.

For Cassell, when he first encountered a 9-year-old Trippier, the talent was obvious.

"He always struck a ball like a Premiership player. He's by no means David Beckham - Beckham was special - but he's certainly the best crosser of the ball on the run and stationary that we've had since Beckham," he said.

It was perhaps the influence of Beckham that saw Trippier initially play in midfield for Manchester City's youth sides. Cassell appreciated his spirit and mischievous streak - Trippier's former coach at City, Steve Eyre, told the Manchester Evening News' Stuart Brennan that he made a game of "mis-hitting" 40-yard passes that would frequently bounce off the groundsman's head - and utilised the "great technician" in central midfield, a position where his defensive struggles may not be as costly.

"He was the best midfielder, but we realised the other two lads (Scott Kay and Andrew Tutte) were very good as well," Cassell recalled. "I would probably say at the time Kieran had a bit more energy and creativity in his play, and we realised that the game was changing and we needed to have wide players that could firstly, defend with their energy, secondly, get forward, and thirdly, get balls into the box."

At 17, Trippier was reimagined as a right-back. His pace and deliveries from the flank added considerable weaponry to a team that went on to win the 2008 FA Youth Cup. However, there was impatience to his defensive work that needed to be ironed out. He would prematurely expect his teammates to clear the ball, so would often have his back to the action and be readying to break when the job wasn't done. He also needed to master some basics.

"He would always try and win the ball and we used to say to him 'you can't always win it, the first rule of defence if you can't win it is to delay and stand them up and give your colleagues chance to get their shape back,'" Cassell explained. "That was a thing we worked on endlessly with him."

Given the choice, all of Cassell's charges would have stayed with City, and he believes if Trippier was loaned out for longer he could still be at the Etihad Stadium. Harry Kane, who plays with Trippier at Tottenham Hotspur and had four temporary stints away from the club before breaking through, is a poster boy for exercising greater patience with academy products.

In January 2012, Trippier and Ben Mee, the captain of City's 2008 youth contingent, were signed on permanent terms by then-boss of nearby Burnley, Eddie Howe, after a few months on loan. Taking one step back into the Championship later allowed for several steps forward for Trippier. The 2014-15 season, his fourth and final term with Burnley, was spent in the Premier League after he had incredibly contributed 14 assists from right-back in the previous second-tier season.

"I told people when he was at Burnley he would play for England and they were laughing at me a bit," Cassell said. "That role had become so important in the game and I didn't know of anybody - even though he was still at Burnley - in the country who was better at it than him.

"What he needed was exposure with a bigger club and, luckily for Kieran, Tottenham came in - it's a bit like playing for Middlesex in cricket, you get more notice at Middlesex than you would at Glamorgan."

The continued improvement of Trippier at Tottenham has been remarkable. Cassell acknowledges the consistency Mauricio Pochettino brought to his game, plus the intelligent timing of his runs and greater defensive awareness. He was the understudy right-back at Spurs for almost two full seasons until Kyle Walker's relationship with Pochettino began to sour. In the summer of 2017, Walker moved on to Manchester City - assuming the role that, if Roberto Mancini wasn't under pressure to deliver trophies, could have been long occupied by the diminutive Mancunian - and Trippier has since managed to keep Walker's replacement, Serge Aurier, at arm's length.

And, a year on from those transactions between Manchester City, Tottenham, and Paris Saint-Germain, one of Southgate's brave decisions in his starting lineup has been able to find a place for Trippier and Walker in a 3-5-2 formation. In the schematic, Trippier has thrived as a right wing-back - only Neymar, Kevin De Bruyne, and Luka Modric have played more key passes after the World Cup's quarter-final stage - while Walker's pace on the right-hand side of a back-three has been a valuable asset in scuppering opposition counter-attacks.

"That system is tailor-made for him," Cassell said of Trippier. "He's got great energy. He was always a good cross-country runner at school. He's always been able to cover the ground."

He added: "I used to say when I was asked about the two of them that Kyle was the better defender, and Kieran was the better attacking right-sided player."

Southgate's England does not simply loft it into the box. The Three Lions do not gamble on winning second balls in the area, nor is there an Emile Heskey lurking at the back stick looking to nod it down to an onrushing Michael Owen. The deliveries from out wide are based on accuracy, and Wednesday's semi-final foe Croatia should be wary of a link that yielded five Tottenham league goals last season: Trippier to Kane.

If Trippier's trademark flat, snappy deliveries aren't able to find inroads behind Zlatko Dalic's defence, you would bet on a leading protagonist of this new England era to rifle another penalty home should the tussle go to a shootout.

(Photos courtesy: Getty Images)