But in fewer than five minutes, Saka emerged as the brave hero of England.

 With a wonderful curling shot from the edge of the box, the Arsenal player cut inside from his new position at right wing-back to tie the score.

Before the game, predictably, veered towards penalties, both teams had opportunities to win it in extra time.

 And with England leading 2-1 in penalty kicks following Jordan Pickford’s stop of Manuel Akanji, Saka stepped up with the opportunity to give England the upper hand.

Saka, 22, calmly fired past Yann Sommer to erase the memories of his devastating mistake in the team’s final Euro 2020 defeat to Italy.

It was a flawless set of pennies as all five of England’s takers converted, and they went on to win 5-3, their sole shootout victory to date.

Saka said, “It’s something I embrace,” when asked about banishing his demons.

What made our fight back unique was how we did it. We are all aware of what transpired the last time we went to penalties.

“You can make a mistake once, but you can choose to not put yourself in that situation again. As a guy, I will place myself in that circumstance.

I had confidence in myself.It was incredibly tough to recover from something like that, but I made use of it to strengthen me.

“We are aware that there are two more games left before we can alter the course of history and transform our own lives. We’re concentrating a lot on that.

”

Hopefully, we can win in ninety minutes in the next game. However, we’ll do whatever it takes to achieve this.

Saka received a huge hug from England manager Gareth Southgate during the festivities, and Southgate was clearly very delighted of his star player.

 “Bukayo was so brave,” stated Southgate. We never doubted that he would take one because he is among our best.

We are all aware of his struggles, so to deliver in the manner that he did… I hugged him tightly while we were on the pitch. He’s a unique youngster who is a pleasure to work with.

“It requires bravery, but we trusted him.” We had previously trusted him. He has a lot more experience with those stressful situations now. He gave an outstanding performance all around.

“So yeah, I’m proud of myself as well for that.”

 Saka’s beaming demeanour during a post-match interview on the BBC left host Gary Lineker gushing about the “wonderful” England player.”What a wonderful young man,” he exclaimed. He is incredibly charming and intelligent.”

Rio Ferdinand, a Beeb analyst, continued, saying, “He just strikes me as being so optimistic in every way. You can’t help but adore him for his charm and personality in addition to his football prowess.

He’s so unique from everyone else that I would even argue he’s England’s most important player.

He’s the one who will charge at targets, take them out one-on-one, and enter from behind.

“He is a winger, yet he played a wing back position even today. He’s such a good athlete.”

Saka was among several English players subjected to abhorrent racial taunts after failing to convert a penalty kick during England’s final shootout at the European Championship.

After substituting in, he saw Gianluigi Donnarumma save his penalty kick as Italy defeated England in the Euro 2020 final.