-
Luke Shaw hails ‘amazing confidence’ of Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho for scoring in FA Cup shootout for Man United & exorcising ghosts of Euro 2020 final.
Following two agonizing misses against Italy, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho received praise from Luke Shaw for successfully converting their respective penalties.
The duo’s first Wembley shootout since the Euro 2020 final, when they both missed their spot-kicks in England’s agonizing loss to Italy, was in Sunday’s penalty shootout in the FA Cup semi-final against Brighton.
However, both forwards scored on their kicks and United eventually prevailed 7-6 after extra time ended in a 0-0 stalemate.
“I was next to Jadon. I said, ‘whatever happens happens, just be confident. It’s part of football, things happen, these things happen'”, Shaw told reporters after United’s nerve-shredding penalty win at Wembley.
“And I think maybe what was playing on [Sancho and Rashford’s] minds are the things that come with it – the racism and stuff that they experienced last time. But, of course, for me, they showed amazing confidence to step up and because the last time they took one in a shootout it was, of course, here and the memories of that. But I’m really happy for both of them to put themselves forward and take really good penalties.”
Following their missed penalties for England, Rashford, Sancho, and Bukayo Saka all received vile racist slurs on social media, but they also received outpourings of fan support. The 2021 Europa League final against Villarreal was one of United’s seven prior eight shootout losses.
“I haven’t spoken to him [Sancho] but I’m sure there’ll be maybe a bit of relief and I think very happy that they managed to take one and score,” Shaw added. “I’ve been involved in two penalty shootouts and I’ve been on the losing side both times (with United and England in the 2021 Europa League and Euros finals), so to win one today was a big relief for me.”
On Thursday, United travels to Tottenham, who are now in fifth position, with the goal of securing a top-four finish.