Jose Mourinho has hit out at England’s senior stars for their failure to step up in the pivotal final moment against Italy in Sunday night’s Euro 2020 penalty shootout.
Gareth Southgate’s side went the distance, but came unstuck from 12 yards as three stars missed when called upon.
The decisive kick fell to teenager Bukayo Saka, who stepped up and failed to beat Gianluigi Donnarumma, but Mourinho insists a more experienced player should have shouldered the responsibility.
Speaking on TalkSport after the defeat to the Azzurri, Mourinho said: ‘In this situation, where was Raheem Sterling? Where was John Stones?
‘Where was Luke Shaw? Why didn’t Jordan Henderson or Kyle Walker stay on the pitch?
‘I think it’s too much for a kid to have everything on his shoulders in this moment, but I don’t know, I have to ask that question to Gareth because many times what happens is that players who should be there are not there, players who should be there, they run away from the responsibility.
‘And because I feel Gareth is such an honest guy and is so protective of his players, I don’t believe Gareth would ever say if “Player A or Player B” ran away or hid or said they were not ready to take one.’
Mourinho went on to suggest that there was more to the squad selection than meets the eye, and that a certain player was left out of the set-up because of a refusal to take a penalty at the 2018 Russia World Cup.
He added: ‘Because, don’t ask me who because I will not tell you, but I was told 100 per cent that one player that could be in this team and was not in this team, one of the reasons was in the World Cup semi-final he should have taken a penalty and he refused.’
On the night Southgate made the controversial call of bringing both Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho on in the dying moments, with the intention of being ready to take a penalty.
Neither player had many minutes under their belt from the tournament, given England’s regular forward line had started almost all of the matches together.
Mourinho continued: ‘In reality it’s very, very hard for Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho to come and take a penalty after one touch on the ball.
‘But for Saka to have the destiny of a country on his shoulders… I think it’s too much.
‘We can speak about the previous days and how they were amazing at taking penalties, but the problem with penalties is it’s one thing is to take one in training and one thing to take in a match, and for those situations there is no way to train them properly because you can’t train with the real pressure, it’s something you only feel in that moment.
‘Poor Saka, I just feel very sorry for him.’
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