England lost the Euros final via penalties on Sunday night after an initial 1-1 draw against Italy at Wembley and many people have blamed England boss Gareth Southgate for the defeat.
The Three Lions missed three spot-kicks to hand the European Cup to their Italian counterparts. But what went wrong and who was to blame?
Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka missed the last three penalties, which if they had been converted, would have won the match for England seeing as the Azzurri themselves also missed two of theirs.
The choice and arrangement of penalty takers was labelled by many as a tactical mishap by Gareth Southgate that came back to haunt him.
The England boss brought on Sancho and Marcus Rashford who had frequently been overlooked for the most part of the tournament and probably suffered from lack of match fitness, replacing more experienced players when it appeared the match was likely to go into a penalty shoot out.
The decision begs the question; why the sudden trust when you didn’t trust them to even feature before?
Gareth Southgate’s choice of penalty takers backfired when he put the younger players under a lot of pressure. Older and more experienced players like Raheem Sterling, Luke Shaw, Jack Grealish should have been called upon.
Harry Kane and Harry Maguire were supposed to be tasked with taking the fourth and fifth penalty based on their experience and confidence. Instead, Kane and Harry Maguire took the first and second which they calmly converted.
Arsenal teenager Saka who is one of the youngest players in the squad and who is not a penalty taker at club level found himself in the deep blue sea with the fate of the country in his hands when he stepped up to take his penalty. It’s no wonder he missed.
Sancho and Rashford barely touched the ball more than once on the pitch when they came on but were lined up to take title deciding penalties. It almost seems like a setup by Southgate.
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All three players missed the penalty shoot out and all three suffered racist abuse online from the English fans, which is very common in English football.
It is an action which will affect their professional careers because the abuse was from fans of their own country making them feel like aliens in a country they were proudly playing for.
The pressure would have been well managed by players who are accustomed to being under that much pressure before, or the younger players should have taken the penalties first just like Italy did.
It was a poor in game management from Southgate. Instead of being applauded for their bravery of stepping up to take the penalties on such a big stage, these young prospective players will now be judged and abused because of one football kick they shouldn’t have been subjected to.
They will continue their careers with fears of making a mistake and fear of racial abuse from fans of their own country which is not healthy psychologically.
Notwithstanding, the England team have done themselves proud. They indeed have come a long way and will go far with the same momentum. Congratulations once again to Italy on a much deserved victory.
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