The last time that Jadon Sancho was at Wembley Stadium, it didn’t end well. It was the Euro 2020 final (staged in 2021, due to covid), where England fell to Italy in a penalty shootout. Three Lions came oh so close to ending their major trophy drought (1966 and counting), but it was not to be.
Sancho, as well as Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka, missed their penalty kicks during the shoot-out.
UCL Final FYIs
Kickoff: Sat. June 1, 8pm, Wembley Stadium, London, UK
Team News: Real Madrid Borussia Dortmund
Starting XI Predictions: Real Madrid Borussia Dortmund
90 Min Probability: Real Madrid 59% Extra Time 22% Borussia Dortmund 19%
One has to wonder about the decisions manager Gareth Southgate made, with his substitutions and penalty kick taker selection, but that is a discussion for another time and place.
All three are black, and soon found themselves subjected to racial abuse.
That is tough enough to take as it is, but it was made all the more harder, given that Sancho is from London (where the final defeat occurred).
Sancho, now on loan at Borussia Dortmund, returns to Wembley on Saturday for the UEFA Champions League Final.
And he says that he is not yet fully recovered from the racial abuse that he suffered.
“This is still something that’s in my head sometimes,” Sancho said to CNN.
“I don’t think I’ve fully recovered yet on that part, but I’m trying my best to get over that.
“The backlash we got from it, it wasn’t nice. Being in London, not in a million years I would have thought that we would have received [that], especially representing our country. It’s a memory I try to block, but I can’t act like it didn’t happen.
“So this is one of those memories that you got to try to get past it and be positive.”
Indeed winning a European Cup would be extremely positive! That is especially so given how the beginning, or actually the whole first half of his 2023-24 season went.
We’ll have more on his falling out at United, with manager Erik ten Hag, in an upcoming post soon..
Paul M. Banks is the Founding Editor of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He currently contributes to Ravens Wire, part of the USA Today SMG’s NFL Wire Network and the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America. His past bylines include the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times. You can follow him on Linked In and Twitter.