It’s brutal sometimes, football. One by one, the players went to Bukayo Saka. They told him it would be OK, that they were proud of him, and that he should be proud of himself, too. They told him there was no blame and, even as they were saying it, they must have known their words made little difference.
Maybe, in time, Saka will come to understand that, yes, he ought to be proud he played with such distinction during Euro 2020 that he was trusted, at the age of 19, to be part of the penalty shootout which decided the final between England and Italy.
For now, though, what can anyone say to console a player who has suffered this kind of professional trauma?
How do you even begin to find the words when the youngest man — still a boy, really — on the team is wandering around the Wembley pitch, trying to avoid eye contact, and there is a look on his face that says, “What have I just done?”
Not just Saka, either.
Another cluster of England players could be seen telling Jadon Sancho that it wasn’t his fault, that he was a great lad and, bloody hell, what nerve he had shown to step forward in the penalty shootout ahead of so many others.
Marcus Rashford was not too far away, hands on knees, looking so vulnerable for someone who has made a reputation for being so strong.
Gareth Southgate held Sancho and tried to find the right words, as someone whose professional life has been defined by penalty shootout heartache. Southgate pulled in Saka for a bearhug and talked quietly into his ear. “Nobody is on their own,” the England manager later said.
Ultimately, though, Southgate will know from first-hand experience that it is a lonely moment for the players in that position.
At 10.49pm, Harry Maguire had slashed in a penalty with so much power and accuracy it dislodged the television camera in the top corner of the goal. England led 2-1 in the shootout then, after two kicks each, courtesy of Jordan Pickford’s save from Andrea Belotti a few moments earlier. It was all on: the glory, Southgate’s redemption, a brave new world.
At 10.54pm, everything had changed.
Rashford’s penalty was the first of three English misses in a row, then Sancho, then Saka: players aged 23, 21 and 19 who had some of the best marks of the entire England squad during the training-ground shootout rehearsals that led to this scene.
These were trusted because Southgate had seen enough to believe they could handle the occasion and, however much he is being questioned now for his choices, this is a side to the England manager that many people have found appealing.
Instead, three more names can be added to a list that takes in England’s various other ordeals from 12 yards: Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle at Italia 90; Southgate himself at Euro 96; Paul Ince and David Batty at France 98; David Beckham and Darius Vassell at Euro 2004, the anguish of the 2006 World Cup with Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher and the Euro 2012 misery for Ashleys Young and Cole. And now Rashford, Sancho and Saka from another night when Southgate had to reflect on 12 yards of hurt.
10.46pm: Domenico Berardi scores (Italy 1, England 0).
In a different time, England’s goalkeepers have not always felt they were given enough detail about the opposition penalty-takers.
David James, for example, dived the wrong way for the kicks of Deco, Simao and Maniche in Euro 2004, as well as being deceived by Cristiano Ronaldo’s stop-start run-up and Helder Postiga’s dinked shot. And another one: as brilliant as Andrea Pirlo’s Panenka was at Euro 2012, why didn’t Joe Hart know what might be coming? Pirlo had tried the same trick four times before, scoring with three of them.
Nobody, however, could say that Jordan Pickford wasn’t well briefed last night.
Berardi sets Italy on their way (Photo: Facundo Arrizabalaga – Pool/Getty Images)The issue here, perhaps, was that England were expecting to face Manuel Locatelli first, but he had stood down after missing their opener against Spain in the semi-final shootout five days earlier.
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Berardi takes his place and begins the final’s version by stroking the ball to Pickford’s right as the goalkeeper dives left.
10.47pm: Harry Kane scores (Italy 1, England 1).
The most remarkable thing about this penalty is it’s the first time all night Kane has touched the ball in the Italy 18-yard box.
Kane scores England’s first penalty with a rare touch in the Italian box (Photo: Facundo Arrizabalaga – Pool/Getty Images)Kane has been so difficult to judge in this tournament: sometimes excellent, sometimes not so good and, in the first two group matches, mystifyingly out of sorts.
Here, though, the England captain took his penalty with the kind of authority that showed the importance of know-how and experience.
10.48pm: Andrea Belotti misses (Italy 1, England 1).
What is going through Pickford’s mind when he and Gianluigi Donnarumma come together to shake hands before the penalties start?
Italy’s goalkeeper has to reach down to his English counterpart. Donnarumma, standing at 6ft 5in, has the kind of frame that must have been slightly unnerving for England’s penalty-takers. Pickford, though, seems determined to make up for his lack of size in other ways.
He is jumping up and down, stretching out his arms, trying to make himself look as big as possible. Belotti is Torino’s regular penalty-taker but seems to let it get to him. It is not a good penalty.
Pickford saves to his left and the noise inside Wembley goes up several notches.
English hopes rise as Pickford saves from Belotti (Photo: Andy Rain/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)10.49pm: Harry Maguire scores (Italy 1, England 2)
It is the part of the goal, at the juncture between post and crossbar, that is commonly known as the “postage stamp”. The shot is still rising as it hits the net. It is a centre-half’s thwack and these are the moments when England’s supporters could probably be entitled to think everything might be falling into place.
Maguire slams the ball into the top corner (Photo: Andy Rain – Pool/Getty Images)Italy have already won one penalty shootout in this competition and no team had ever done it twice in the same tournament.
England, meanwhile, had won their previous two shootouts, against Colombia in the 2018 World Cup and Switzerland in the following year’s Nations League third-place play-off.
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Southgate is holding up a clenched fist.
10.50pm: Leonardo Bonucci scores (Italy 2, England 2).
Rumours have been circulating that Bonucci and centre-back partner Giorgio Chiellini are planning to retire from international football after the World Cup. The 2038 World Cup, that is.
For now, the two players at the heart of Italy’s defence, aged 34 and 36 respectively, are having far too much fun to consider standing aside.
Bonucci’s penalty is also a reminder that the senior players should generally be the ones who step forward in shootouts.
Pickford goes the right way again.
This time, however, Bonucci lifts the shot and the extra height takes it out of the England goalkeeper’s reach.
Right building, wrong floor for Pickford as Bonucci puts Italy’s third penalty over him (Photo: Paul Ellis/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)10.51pm: Marcus Rashford misses (Italy 2, England 2).
And now it all starts to unravel for England…
Rashford has spent so long trying to help the people he has campaigned for, it would be nice to think he might now experience some of the kindness he has demonstrated himself.
That said, Southgate also tells the story about the aftermath of Euro 96 and receiving a letter from a prisoner who blamed England’s shootout defeat – and Southgate, more than anyone – for him turning to crime and ending up behind bars. So who can be sure what the reaction will be?
The more relevant issue, perhaps, is whether it was a sensible idea for Southgate to bring on Rashford and Sancho, as substitutes in the final moments of extra time, with the penalty shootout specifically in mind. Did that not just play with their nerves? Did it not fill their minds with added pressure?
“Never easy to take a penalty,” Carragher wrote on Twitter, “even more pressure when you’re brought on for that reason.”
Carragher knows this from experience — Sven-Goran Eriksson did the same with him in the 2006 World Cup quarter-final against Portugal and it finished with the team going out of the tournament.
In Rashford’s case, he had not looked at his best throughout this tournament.
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His run-up involves a strategic stutter. He bends his run, all the time keeping his eyes on Donnarumma. But he has got his angles wrong. His shot skids off the base of the goalkeeper’s right-hand post, with the Italian having gone the other way, and England’s advantage is gone.
Donnarumma dove the other way but Rashford hit the post (Photo: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)10.51pm: Federico Bernardeschi scores (Italy 3, England 2).
Italy sense it now.
Bernardeschi goes down the middle. Pickford dives to his right and the ball goes into the space the goalkeeper just vacated.
Suddenly, England fans could be forgiven for feeling an uncomfortable sense of deja vu.
Bernardeschi puts Italy ahead to stay (Photo: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)10.52pm: Jadon Sancho misses (Italy 3, England 2).
England’s fourth penalty.
At this stage of the shootout against Argentina at France 98, Michael Owen turned to Alan Shearer for some last-minute advice before starting his walk from the centre circle. Owen, then 18 years old, wanted to know which way he should go with his shot.
“Do what you normally fucking do and put it in the back of the net,” came Shearer’s sage reply.
Sancho’s penalty is saved by Donnarumma (Photo: Facundo Arrizabalaga – Pool/Getty Images)Sound advice — Owen scored, as he always did for England from 12 yards.
Sancho, however, is about to discover that scoring penalties in training is a lot easier than when the heat of the battle is rising dangerously close to intolerable.
It is not a confident penalty. Donnarumma dives to his left to turn the ball away and, as Sancho sets off on the trudge back to the halfway line, he will know that Italy can now win it with one more successful kick.
10.53pm: Jorginho misses (Italy 3, England 2).
First things first. There is a strong case that Jorginho should not still be on the pitch after embedding his studs in the knee of Jack Grealish during extra time. Now, he is about to win Euro 2020 for Italy. Or, at least, that is what just about every person at Wembley or watching on TV is probably expecting as Chelsea’s expert penalty-taker approaches the ball.
Pickford saves Italy’s fifth penalty (Photo: Eddie Keogh – The FA/The FA via Getty Images)It is a staring contest with Pickford. Jorginho likes to know which way the goalkeeper is going to dive. So the best solution in that position is not to move and turn it back on the kicker. Jorginho goes for the bottom left corner and this is the moment when Pickford makes what, in happier circumstances, might have turned out to be the most important save of his life.
He has knocked the ball against the post and away and, in an explosion of short-lived joy, he is punching the air. He has no idea it will be his final contribution to this tournament and that, within a few moments, it will all be over.
10.54pm: Bukayo Saka misses (Italy 3, England 2).
It is that walk. That moment, setting off from the centre circle, when insecurity can enter a player’s mind.
“The walk seemed to take forever,” Southgate writes in his autobiography, remembering his 1996 shootout penalty in that semi-final loss to Germany at Wembley. “It struck me how dark the night had become.”
Now, a quarter of a century on, Southgate might have to understand why there will be questions about whether it was wise to expect a player of 19 to handle this kind of extreme pressure.
“Bukayo is not on his own,” he said. “He’s such a super boy, so popular with the whole group, and he has had an incredible tournament. He’s been an absolute star and will continue to be an absolute star. We’ve got to be there to support him and I’m sure he will get a lot of love.”
Southgate reiterated that “they were the best takers we had left on the pitch”. But he admitted, too, that it had been a gamble on his part.
Saka aims his shot to Donnarumma’s left. It is on target but, at this level of the sport, it needs to be nearer the corner and struck more forcibly.
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Grealish has his hands on his hips. Maguire pulls his shirt over his face. Luke Shaw turns away. Declan Rice is the first to crumble, rubbing at his eyes, unable to hold back his emotions.
The gamble did not work and, unfortunately for Southgate, should maybe not have been taken in the first place.
(Top photo: Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
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