NICK Pope could be summoned to be England's penalty shoot-out hero against Columbia tonight - and he has already proved his worth in saving spot kicks for the Clarets.

There has been speculation that Pope's height advantage over Jordan Pickford and Jack Butland could see him called off the bench to come on for a shoot-out, should one be required to settle the Three Lions and their round of 16 opponents.

Pope has saved two of the 13 penalties he has faced in his Football League career, with a third flying over the crossbar as Glen Murray missed for Brighton at the Amex Stadium in December.

But Pope was the the hero from 12 yards for Burnley at St James' Park on January 31, as he made a low save to keep out Joselu's penalty against Newcastle, helping the Clarets to a valuable point in the north east.

That was Pope's first Premier League penalty save, with his last stop coming for Bury against Oxford United's Danny Hylton on Saturday, March 7 2015.

After denying Joselu Pope was modest about his heroics and insisted a penalty save was his way of contributing to the side.

“There are 11 of us out there and we all play our part. We all know we’re a team and it’s a great togetherness that we have,” he said.

“We’re all out there to do our jobs individually and then stick together as a team. Maybe it swings the game’s momentum sometimes with a penalty save or a save like that so it’s nice to contribute.”

Pope revealed then that he did his research on penalty takers in the days leading up to a game.

“As a goalkeeper you can’t really score goals so those are your moments. I’m happy to help," he said.

“I have a little look (at penalty takers) in the days leading up to the game just to see what’s going on. At the end of the day you pick a side, you guess and you go for it really. That’s what I did and happily I guessed right.”