DÜSSELDORF, Germany — Bukayo Saka knelt near the center spot and looked up at the sky.
The rest of the England players sprinted towards the goal to celebrate, along with Trent Alexander-Arnold and Jordan Pickford, the team’s two stars who beat Switzerland on penalties in Saturday’s European Championship quarter-final.
Saka was happy to be alone and experience some measure of relief.
In the Euro 2021 final, he scored the penalty that sealed Italy’s victory at Wembley Stadium.
Saka and fellow black players Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho, who also missed penalties in the shootout, were subjected to horrific racist slurs on social media as a result.
Saka was 19 at the time and the youngest player on the multi-ethnic England team that captured the hearts of a football-mad nation – at least until their defeat to Italy.
Three years later, Saka again made the long, lonely stride from the centre circle to the penalty spot to take England’s third kick in the shootout against Switzerland.
England trailed 1-1 after Saka equalised in the 80th minute and then won 5-3 on penalties, this time hitting the bottom corner of the net and covering his ears in celebration.
“For me, it’s something I accept,” Saka said of the pressure of taking another penalty for England. “You fail once, but you can choose whether to put yourself in that situation again.”
“I’m a guy who puts himself in that position. I believed in myself. And when I saw the ball go into the back of the net, I was a very happy guy.”
Saka said it was “really tough” to recover from that fateful night in July 2021, but that “I was able to use it to make myself stronger.”
He said he wasn’t thinking about his mistake against Italy when he took the penalty against Switzerland.
“I’m not going to dwell on the past,” he said. “It’s over. I can just focus on the present and take the penalty. People are nervous, my family is there, but I kept my cool and scored.”
Saka assisted Jude Bellingham’s goal in the group stage and also scored a goal himself at Euro 2024, the most important being Breel Embolo’s 75th-minute strike to put Switzerland ahead at the Düsseldorf Arena.
Saka cut in from the right wing and curled a low shot from the edge of the area into the top corner to tie the score.
“We know we’re two games away from changing our lives and making history,” he said. “We’re focused on that.”
