Alan Shearer believes England players should be “proud” of their performance at Euro 2020 – despite last night’s devastating penalty shoot-out defeat to Italy.
The former NUFC number nine also condemned the vile racist abuse hurled at Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka after the game, calling for social media companies to clamp down on the ‘disgusting’ minority.
The Three Lions threw away the game on the biggest stage of all after taking an early lead and putting in a solid first-half display.
England went 2-1 up during the shoot-out but misses from Rashford, Sancho and Saka proved costly and crowned Italy as European champions for the second time.
Our record goalscorer thinks they should hold their heads high despite the loss, and said this after the game for the BBC:
“I’m disappointed like everyone else is, football can be a cruel, cruel game at times and I’ve been on the end of it.
“Unfortunately these boys will feel so hurt, so angry, so disappointed this morning and it will hurt them for a while.
“But when you look at the whole picture they should feel very proud of what they have given us because they have given us hope, put smiles on our faces and pulled a lot of people together over the past month.”
“For the youngsters to say ‘yes, I’ll go on and take a penalty, you have to give them credit for that.
“But it will be tough for them now.
“Hopefully, they will get over it.”
Shearer then said this on the sickening racist abuse received from the three players who missed from the spot:
“There are so many positives to social media, but also so many negatives.
“The positives are it allows a lot of the players in the squad to show their personality on and off the pitch, and we’ve seen some of the great work that Raheem Sterling and Marcus Rashford have done.
“But on the negative side – and what on earth do people think about when these guys have been brave enough to take a penalty – what are people thinking about going online and abusing these players?
“What is wrong with some people? It’s just so sad and ridiculous.
“I hope the social media companies expose these individuals. Absolutely disgusting.”
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