BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa (AFP) - David James will relish the opportunity to try and end Germany's record of having never lost a penalty shoot-out, should Sunday's World Cup second round clash with England come to that.
Twice, the 39-year-old has been to World Cup finals and failed to see as much as a minute's action and only six months ago he was close to accepting that would be the limit of his involvement.
Robert Green had replaced him as England's number one and a season bedevilled by injury had given him cause to believe he wouldn't even be getting on the plane to South Africa, far less lining up as England's number one goalkeeper in the country's biggest match since the 2006 World Cup quarter-final defeat by Portugal.
"I had a point at Christmas where I literally lay in bed thinking 'I'm goosed' because I must have had six or so weeks where I had not played," he recalled.
"That time it was my knee. Things just kept breaking down, my knee, my calf, whatever."
James did finally manage to get himself fit in time to make Capello's final squad but his recovery came too late for him to dislodge Green from the starting line-up for England's opening match.
Hearing Fabio Capello announce his team, two hours before that match, was a painful moment, he admitted.
"For two minutes I was unhappy, of course I had to be," he confessed. "I'd spent many an hour on my own in the gym, bursting my arse on a treadmill or on a cross trainer and thinking 'I am doing this for England.'"
As things turned out, the horrendous blunder by Green that gifted the United States their equaliser in England's opening match here resulted in the gloves being handed back to James, and after two clean sheets and two authoritative displays, they look like staying with him until England fly home.
The match against Portugal in Germany, like so many in England's unhappy recent football history, ended in a penalty shoot-out, as did their last two tournament meetings with Germany, in the semi-finals at Italia 90 and Euro 96.
Add spot-kick defeats by Portugal at Euro 2004 and by Argentina at France 98 then throw in the fact that Germany last missed a shoot-out penalty 28 years ago, and it is not hard to understand why the English are a little bit obsessed with their fallibility when it comes to knocking a ball into a net from 12 yards.
James, admits that the preparations for penalties have, in past tournaments, not been as thorough as it might have been.
At Euro 2004, England went down to a 2-1 defeat by France in a group game in which Zinedine Zidane scored an injury-time winner from the spot.
"It was highlighted afterwards that we didn't have any evidence of Zidane taking a penalty for two years prior to the game," James recalled.
With two full-time video technicians on hand at England's luxurious training camp at Rustenburg and with the resources offered by YouTube and player-scouting data bases, such an oversight is unlikely to be repeated.
"In the last three games we have had DVD's on just about ever aspect of the opposition, attacking wise—penalties, freekicks, corners and whatever else," James revealed.
The use of video technology to prepare goalkeepers for penalties entered new territory at the 2009 League Cup final, when Ben Foster helped Manchester United beat Tottenham after reviewing footage of Spurs' players taking recent penalties on an ipod, just before the shoot-out.
James was not certain if Fabio Capello's backroom staff will have a similar gadget available on Sunday, but he has no doubt about the value of thorough preparation on that score.
"It is no guarantee of success but you just look for that little clue that will help you," he said. "You think you work out what the guy is going to do and somewhere in the game you hope it happens."
Capello's England have been practising penalties at the end of every training session since they began their World Cup build-up in Austria at the end of last month, Jermain Defoe has seen enough of his team-mate to believe that England's hopes of keeping out any German spot-kicks on Sunday are in good hands.
"He's fantastic at saving them," the Spurs striker reported. "All the goalkeepers are but Jamo, just because of his size, he makes the goal look small."
