The Mail have published an extensive report about England’s penalty shootout on Sunday, and they’ve shared how England’s players felt about Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka being chosen to take the Three Lions’ fifth penalty.
According to The Mail, the overwhelming feeling amongst the players was shock, and to be fair, it’s not hard to understand why.
Now, this isn’t to say that Saka isn’t a fantastic player, because everyone who’s ever watched him on a football pitch would know that he is, but it has to be said that he may not have been the most suitable player for this situation.
For a start, Saka is only 19 years old, that’s a lot of pressure to put on a young man’s shoulders, and even more importantly, he’d never taken a senior penalty before this game.
Of course, Gareth Southgate will have had his reasons for picking Saka, The Mail state that he’d been banging in penalties in training, but when push comes to shove, a Euros final is a completely different animal to any training session.
The rest of the England players were reportedly shocked by Southgate’s decision to put Saka fifth, and sadly, the decision backfired as Gianluigi Donnarumma made what was a rather straightforward save to win the Euros for Italy.
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