England's penalty takers foil racism — on and off the field at Euro 2024
DUSSELDORF, Germany — Amid all the good cheer and celebratory wishes bestowed upon England after its penalty shootout victory over Switzerland, few were more pleasing than what Jadon Sancho had to say about Bukayo Saka.
"I'm so proud of this guy!," Sancho wrote about Saka on his Instagram account. "You did it for me and Marcus brother!"
I'm not claiming to be able to read Sancho's mind, but it's a fair assumption there was more behind his message than that he, Saka and Marcus Rashford all had their efforts saved by Gianluigi Donnarumma in the Euro 2020 final, as Italy triumphed at Wembley Stadium.
What happened afterward was the most unpleasant part of what had been a high-quality and intriguing tournament, staged Europe-wide for the first time.
Parts of British social media became an ugly, twisted place, filled with vile messages of abuse and senselessness direct towards those three players.
None of the posts deserve a repeat airing, but the worst of them drew ludicrous parallels with how England's two scorers, Harry Kane and Harry Maguire, are white — and Rashford, Sancho and Saka are black.
On Saturday, Saka scored the equalizer in England's quarterfinal and was on target again in the shootout. Rashford and Sancho were not picked for Euro 2024 after struggling for form at club level.
"Where are the racists now????" wrote former England defender Rio Ferdinand, above a photo of the five England kickers, all of whom scored to ice a semifinal against the Netherlands in Dortmund on Wednesday.
That group was Cole Palmer, who has Caribbean heritage, Jude Bellingham, Saka, Ivan Toney and Trent Alexander-Arnold. Swiss goalkeeper Yann Sommer had no chance to save any of their strikes, and Gareth Southgate's England advanced, despite a disjointed set of performances so far.
England DEFEATS Switzerland in PK shootout to ADVANCE to semifinals
Their success was merely a reminder of the mindlessness of the abuse last time. For this tournament, even if things had not gone England's way on penalties, steps had been taken, aimed at preventing any kind of repeat.
Representatives from the United Kingdom's police force met with the squad at England's main training facility in March.
Police also took active steps to reduce the waiting period for receiving information about offenders from social media companies.
"We've explained to the players that we are there to support them," chief constable Mark Roberts told the BBC. "We've given them some advice on how they can protect themselves with setting up their own accounts to try to prevent it happening and to reassure them that we are there.
"It's really depressing when you see some of the abuse meted out to our black players in particular, so we've done a lot of work with the social media companies.
"Where someone is in this country, if they think they can do that and remain anonymous, they can't. We will find them."
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When the offensive behavior happened, Rashford was just 23, Sancho 21 and Saka 19. The fortitude shown by Saka in Dusseldorf was mightily impressive.
"You can fail once, but you have a choice if you put yourself in that position or not again," Saka told a press conference. "I am a guy who is going to put myself in that position."
Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports. Follow him on Twitter @MRogersFOX and subscribe to the daily newsletter.
