EPL TALK: Bukayo Saka doesn't deserve this cruel fate

LIFE can be cruel, but professional sport can be even more so, in one aspect. We all get to watch. We all get to participate in the suffering of the individual.

An athlete’s pain is popcorn fare for the rest of us. In Victorian times, communities gathered in the town square for public executions. Now, they sit on sofas and point fingers at Bukayo Saka.

He missed an important penalty. That’s all. He has now missed two important penalties: one for England in the Euro 2020 final and one for Arsenal, in Sunday’s 2-2 draw at West Ham. And he’s had to issue two public apologies, because that’s the world we live in. And he’s suffered online racist abuse in both instances, because that’s the world we live in.

Dictators do not apologise for invading sovereign nations any more than oligarchs apologise for dodgy human rights records. There is a hierarchy when it comes to saying sorry. There are those who don’t have to and those abused, vulnerable footballers who must.

So Saka has played out his act of contrition on Instagram, the modern mea culpa for the modern footballer, as young men like him are still expected to pay a heavier price than just about any other professional sportsperson when it comes to mistakes.

Golfers aren’t treated like this, nor are tennis players or Formula 1 drivers, by and large. But professional footballers are still considered fair game. These working-class, council estate escapees are now multi-millionaires and must be reminded of their place at every opportunity.

It’s deliberately targeted and unfair, especially in this instance. Why should an inspirational figure like Saka be tarnished by not one, but two unforced errors? Why can’t fate just let the good guys win?

It’s been nine years, but Steven Gerrard’s slip still rankles. Defining a great man’s career by a single lapse of concentration seems vindictive and puerile, but the Liverpool legend does it to himself. He thinks about the Title Slip every day. The Title Slip even comes with a capital letters now, a proper noun for proper cruelty, to further highlight the game’s viciousness.

A kid from Liverpool leads his beloved (but distinctly average) club to an unlikely Champions League triumph in 2005 on his way to becoming the most complete English midfielder of his generation, only to end up a legend with an asterisk. Rivals still sing songs of hate. Gerrard has to live with it. He has no say in the matter.

Sadistic hand of fate goes too far

Obviously, elite sport is cruel. For Brazil to win the 1994 World Cup, Roberto Baggio must lose in the penalty shootout. He carried the Italians to the final. Now he carries the burden, for life, with no chance of remission. Unjust outcomes are common, but there are those rare examples where the sadistic hand of fate goes too far, shovelling on piles of steaming misery, to the sounds of maniacal laughter just off stage.

Seriously, why did it have to be Saka? Were there not more suitable victims for humiliation? Occasionally, Rob Holding suggested that the art of sprinting was something he’d read about in a textbook rather than anything he’d ever attempted. Martin Ødegaard ran out of puff. Thomas Partey drifted away. Were they not more deserving fall guys?

No, of course not. None of them were. The Gunners are an ongoing exercise in the limits of human endeavour, a collective elastic band stretched to breaking point and held there, even during the World Cup, as they attempt an act of resistance that may still prove futile.

They are emotionally spent, clearly. The strain of being both the aesthetically-pleasing underdogs and the kind of relentless automatons required in a title chase is proving too much. They may be coming apart at the seams. It’s understandable, just deeply regrettable.

And yet, one figure at the heart of the resistance endures. The one most deserving of a league title winners’ medal is least deserving of another missed penalty. Saka stepped up – he doesn’t play any other way – and missed. It was the spot kick of a weary man.

Had Saka scored, Arsenal would’ve restored a two-goal lead and trotted off with three points. Instead, the happy Hammers scampered down the other end, pinched a point and tortured a wounded puppy. This was not the redemptive tale we were looking for.

Most teenagers are bullied only by classroom peers. Saka was bullied by a nation. Following his penalty miss at Euro 2020, England's racists came for him online. He was barely a grown-up at the time, a boy dealing with a lifetime’s worth of abuse in a matter of days.

But he didn’t just recover at Arsenal, he returned to the scene of a previous crime and became their regular penalty taker.

Before the Hammers, he’d scored all four of his spot kicks against Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United. He was intimidated by neither the task nor the opponents. He also broke records along the way. The 21-year-old became the youngest Gunner to produce more than 10 goals and assists in a season.

He currently stands on 22 EPL goal contributions - 10 goals and 12 assists. Erling Haaland and Harry Kane are the only EPL players with more goal contributions. The Gunners might be hanging on at the summit, but Saka led them there.

A missed penalty should not define such an outstanding season, but football is fickle, memories are selective and rival supporters are unforgiving. Arsenal fans will forgive, but Saka may not be able to forget, not unless his team-mates overcome the mental fatigue against Manchester City and wipe out the setback with a winner’s medal.

For a man so young, gifted and fearless, Saka’s story doesn’t need another unhappy ending.

Neil Humphreys is an award-winning football writer and a best-selling author, who has covered the English Premier League since 2000 and has written 26 books.

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