Saka discusses his shock after he earned an England call-up

Bukayo Saka has enjoyed a meteoric rise in the game over the past two years and this year has seen him achieve even greater success.

The 19-year-old Englishman broke into the Arsenal first team last year and he has continued to go from strength to strength so far.

He has become one of the key players in the Arsenal team, playing important roles as they won the FA Cup and Community Shield this year.

He has also just won an England senior call up, an achievement which he can consider as his biggest so far.

He was speaking ahead of his first game for his country and he revealed how shocked he was to have earned the cap.

He claimed that he was even lost when he got the text message saying he had been invited to play for the England senior national team.

He was so stunned that he was on the team bus and forgot that he had to get down until Alexandre Lacazette slapped him in the head to tell him that they had to get off.

Asked how he learned about his call-up, Saka said as quoted by The Metro: ‘In the evening we had a game against Liverpool so I was on the plane,

‘My phone was airplane mode so I landed and turned my phone off airplane mode and I saw a text from a woman I didn’t know until now. 

‘The first line was, “Congratulations Bukayo, you’ve been called up to the England senior team” and I didn’t even read the rest. 

‘I was just sat there just frozen, staring at my phone for a good five minutes. And after, I don’t even know how long it was, Lacazette came and just hit me on my head and said: “Come on, we have to get off the plane!” 

‘That’s how long I was there for just staring at my phone. 

‘There’s a lot of good things that have happened to me in the last few weeks and months but this one was just something special, something different.’

Tags Bukayo Saka

7 Comments

  1. Wow! Appears Nigerian acted the sluggard in trying to blood the starlet into their National theme. Now England has gotten one over them 👍👍👍

    1. Guessing the Super Eagles gaffer has decide to place more faith in the experience to be gotten from Ahmed Musa and Moses Simon. That appears to be a poor decision though as Saka could has sufficiently replaced the now retired Victor Moses

      1. Should Nigeria be crawling and begging Bukayo Saka before he can play for his father land? Congratulations to him, but he should remember that he may not play more than 3 or 4 matches for England

        1. You know even though of a truth, Nigeria should not have to go on her knees beginning pleas to request for Saka to play for his fatherland, National team participation is only ever done premised on a n official invitation from the football association, in this case the NFA, and at the hand of the team coach.

          None of these was done at all which is just so sad for the Super Eagles and awesome for Saka. Though from his display yesterday, except he does the spectacular, may be like getting a goal and an assist from his deep position, he can’t appear in more than 3 or 4 games for the Three Lions.

        2. You can say that again, did he ever indicate interest to play for his father land Nigeria, at least for Cameroun, Mbappe and his father did . Let him pray that he has special skill and edge above the rest else he may end up being only good for training and friendlies, will he be allowed/selected to make the final team for World Cup or Euro Nation’s Cup is another thing. What’s the position of Tammy Abraham now. Bukayo Saka I love you and wish you well, may GOD and luck smile on you.

          1. Football Players’ show of interest to play for any national teams before any sort of official invitation is then made is not the rule of procedure, rather it is the exception.

            In Saka’s defense and the NFA’s incompetent demeanor ;

            1. Really, he may never have been invited at this age to play for the Super Eagles. Saka appears so young and lightweight that his physique would definitely not support African football especially at the CAF Competitions which is played at an even greater frequency in number of yearly intervals “2years” than the FIFA Competitions “4years” and wherein so much premium is placed on physicality, strength and aggressive display rather than skill and tactfulness. As such honestly, the Super Eagles did not need him as of yet. So if he even got invited, his story would end up just as David Alaba who was once invited not even to the National team but to one of the age graded teams “Under 17” and was then turned down for the same reason

            2. Kudos to the English teams who have an even better structure to monitor talent than most African teams. As such Saka’s progress had been monitored over the years wherein he had in the past been successfully invited to play for other National English age grade teams and had thrived in them. This would only logically have over the years seared the progressive expectation of an English National Senior team invitation. Once again kudos to the English Football Association for this👍👍👍

  2. I did tune in just to see how Saka fared, but have to admit it, it proved to me exactly why I don’t normally bother 🥱 Is the break over yet?!! 🤪

Comments are closed

Top Blog Sponsors