Saka and Rice leave second consecutive Euro’s final empty handed
Last night after England were crushed in their second successive Euro’s final by Spain it meant that Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka walked away empty handed for the second time in a row too.
After a dire first half from The Three Lions who failed to turn up completely, an unmarked Nico Williams slotted in the opener for Spain two minutes into the second half from the left hand side of the box. It wasn’t till nearly half an hour later that England showed their potential when super sub Cole Palmer sent in what must surely be the Euros goal of the tournament, slotting away a finish from outside the 25-yard area into the bottom right corner of Unai Simon’s net. With Saka and Rice helping their side locate the winner Spain went and did just that instead, Marc Cucurella who had hardly been on the pitch for long scraped in the decisive strike of the final from close range, witnessing Gareth Southgate’s side plunder to a 2-1 blow in his final match as England manager after nearly an eight year reign.
Within moments of the whistle being blown in Berlin where England had once tackled Hitler’s Nazi Germany 6-3 almost 90 years earlier as one of the greatest teams in Europe, millions of hearts cracked upon the people of England including Saka’s and Rice’s. The two certainly worked tirelessly throughout the final with Saka running his boots off again down the right wing and Rice carrying the ball into Spain’s half multiple times. After 90 minutes The Gunners alongside nine other England players just couldn’t save the day for their 57 million countrymen in support of them but not for the first time!
Three years ago Saka and Rice were a part of the England side who tumbled in the previous final on home turf at Wembley versus Italy. Southgate’s Lions despite going a goal up after two minutes thanks to Luke Shaw gave away a second half leveller (1-1) to the visitors before crashing out on penalties 3-2, with Saka wrongly receiving much abuse for his penalty miss which haunted him up until this Euro when he scored in the shootout against Switzerland in the quarter-final.
There’s a lot of frustration come today from a Nation which has failed to achieve its first honour in 58 years since the 1966 World Cup was lifted, however even Jude Bellingham felt that England were unfortunate last night to lose in the way they did!
He said strongly: “for our country we were wanting to give everything, to lose in that way is really cruel.
“Again we probably didn’t play our best game but there were definitely some good moments, we felt like we got back into the game and then to be sucker punched with the late goal it’s heartbreaking.”
Saka and Rice might’ve struggled to bring home European glory for the people of England and Arsenal over the summer for a second time, on top of coming second to Man City for two seasons in a row.
Hopefully their heads won’t drop and they come back even more determined for the new season to finally give them the winners trophies they crave.
Who’s to say that they won’t bring back silverware for Arsenal next season?
Liam Harding
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I think Saka and Rice knew it was Southgate who couldn’t maximize the abilities of his players, not because of the lack of talents in England squad
It was obvious that the team didn’t dare to make through balls and take higher risks in tight spaces. They rarely used the half-spaces as well, unlike Man City and Arsenal
They’ve surely known that England just need a much better manager. Unfortunately, most English managers should learn more about high-level football
It was still an achievement to reach the final, despite their being much better teams that failed to reach that far.
Spain were deserved winners on form and on paper, so why are we complaining. We got further than both France and Germany who were also better teams than England. So England did well, despite being handicapped playing with 10 men, if you discount Foden.
Nico is a very good player
With Harry Kane in, no team wins nothing. England would have lost even if they had Matradona, Pele, Messi, Ronaldo playing along side Kane.