Bukayo Saka admits he and his England colleagues still bear the emotional ‘scar’ of their World Cup loss to Argentina.
The Arsenal winger made the admission on the eve of England’s Nations League campaign, which sees them host world champions Spain at Wembley on Saturday. That will be the first outing for the Three Lions since the summer, when they finished third in North America – their best-ever result on foreign soil.
Nevertheless, the manner of their semi-final defeat to Argentina still rankles with many given how close the team came to winning. They were 1-0 up with five minutes to go but conceded twice as their Lionel Messi-inspired opponents reached the showpiece – a game they would ultimately lose to Spain.
Reflecting on a summer of what could have been, Saka said: “There’s been a lot of talk and speculation about decisions and whatnot in the Argentina game, but for me, it was tough not to come in.
“But we’re here in a new camp in a new season, and just want to look ahead now and try not to dwell on it anymore.
“You have to put full faith in [to the manager’s decisions]. He puts full faith in you, and you go out on the pitch. You put full faith in him when he’s making decisions as a unit.”
Saka added: “Obviously, there’s still a scar in us. When you believed, and everyone was so united and so confident we could do it, not just us, but the whole country.
“We’re trying to draw a line under it now and focus on the new international season and what we have coming up now. You try to move on as soon as possible, but you know, a scar is a scar [and] decides to heal when it heals itself.
“But like I said, we’ve come here to a new international season, and we’ve got four massive, difficult group games to try to qualify us in the Nations League, which we’re fully focused on.”
Following the Spain game England have two games against the Czech Republic sandwiching a trip to Croatia.
