It was not, it's fair to say, a champagne moment in the soaring career of Jordan Pickford. But in the ashes of a heavy Carlisle United defeat, a small glimpse into the mindset of England's goalkeeper could still be seen.

Tonight's World Cup last-16 game against Colombia will seem a long way from Preston 6 Carlisle 1. Then, Pickford was a 19-year-old Sunderland loanee getting tough League One practice in a relegation-bound Blues team.

A harsh afternoon at Deepdale saw United 2-1 down early in the second half, trying to hold back the inevitable. "Jordan came for a cross, and it was as though he was thinking about what to do with it before he caught it," says Tony Caig, United's keeper coach at the time.

"He dropped it, and they scored. At that point I thought, 'Ooh, let's see how he reacts to that.' Five minutes later another cross comes into the box and he comes and takes it, as confident as anything.

"What happened before had disappeared. It was out of his system. That's a great trait to have as a keeper."

Pickford's strong mentality, coupled with his high ability, has since made him his country's No1; their last barrier against Radamel Falcao and company on a huge night in Moscow, as well as a £30 million Premier League regular with Everton.

It is, at least in some small way, a tribute to the proving ground of the lower leagues. Before this stardom, Pickford sought first-team opportunities aged 17, joining Darlington and later taking loan stints at Alfreton and Burton.

This encouraged United to draft him into a third-tier survival battle in February 2014. There were many loan players at Brunton Park that haphazard campaign, but Pickford was comfortably one of the more able.

"We'd been looking to take him earlier," Caig says. "I'd seen him a few times before, and liked him, and Mark Prudhoe, his coach at Sunderland and someone I knew well from his Carlisle time, said he was worth a gamble.

"Sunderland weren't playing ball in letting us have him, but then Gus Poyet at the last moment decided he could come and play. The terms of the loan suited the club as well."

Mark Gillespie, Carlisle's senior keeper, was injured, Greg Fleming was holding the fort, while United had also brought in the Australian, Dean Bouzanis, when it seemed Pickford was out of reach.

The young loanee's last-minute change of circumstances then left Bouzanis in the shadows. Pickford made his debut in a 2-1 home defeat to Gillingham and played 18 times as Carlisle failed to avoid League Two.

The statistics suggest Pickford did his best to help them dodge such a fate. His second game saw a clean-sheet against Bradford and although that was only one of three victories he tasted, he produced seven shut-outs overall, including three in a row against Shrewsbury, Tranmere and Swindon.

Caig was encouraged by the loanee in all departments. "He was a bit of a throwback, in terms of his mentality to playing," the coach says. "He was very driven, and just got on with things. He was very grounded, trained well, and could kick the ball a mile.

"You can tell a lad who hasn't been out on loan before, because they can be very quiet in the dressing room. With Jordan, you could tell he had something about him...a certain confidence. It was an easy transition for him.

"He was also very open to being coached. He wanted to get better. If you came up with something you'd noticed, and it was constructive, he was more than happy to get on with it. With that attitude, it's not surprised me to see the steps he's made."

In February that season, Graham Kavanagh's Carlisle seemed to have a reasonable chance of survival, but things descended badly from there. Relegation was made likely by a bitter home defeat to Oldham, inevitable by a goalless draw at Crawley and official by a 3-0 loss at champions Wolves.

A player can easily be scarred by such a decline, but not Pickford. "One thing he did well – and this is something coaches used to say to me – is that he was able to separate himself from everything else," Caig says.

"Yes, you are still part of a team, but when you're not getting the results you need, and you're having the turnover of players we did, the worst thing you can do is worry about that, and over-analyse yourself, because that can breed doubt.

"Jordan was very much one who would just turn up and play, and you didn't have to say much to get him in the right frame of mind. I used to notice that, the closer he got to game day, especially on a Friday, he was right on it, sharp as a tack.

"He wasn't one who would wake up on Saturday morning and start thinking about it. He was doing it earlier. As a coach you quickly learn that you don't have to meddle too much with a lad like that, because his thoughts are right.

"I think he recognised that, however we were doing, it was his chance to impress his parent club, so they'd see him as a contender to play in the first team, which eventually happened."

A season at Everton has since consolidated Pickford's top-flight CV, while his World Cup debut has offered mixed experiences, from quiet games against Tunisia and Panama to a more debated performance against Belgium.

Some pundits questioned his attempt to save Adnan Januzaj's winning goal in the latter. "I listened to the guys in the [TV] studio, and I think partly because they haven't had to talk about him up to now, they were looking for things that weren't really there," Caig says.

"I thought he did alright. I wasn't sitting here concerned. But we've always loved a big debate about our keepers at World Cups, even when we had David Seaman and Peter Shilton.

"One thing about Jordan is he will go away from every game and look back at things very closely with the coaches. The same will go for his preparation in the event of penalties tonight.

"He's not the finished article yet - it might be two more World Cups before he's at his peak. But when you look at his face in this one, you don't see that air of a player who is wondering whether he should be there. He looks, in his mind, as though he feels he belongs."