Bukayo Saka played his first minutes in the Champions League five months ago. His absence up to that point seemed as if by technicality. He was a Champions League player without Champions League appearances, owing of course to Arsenal’s six-year failure to qualify. He promptly scored eight minutes into his first game in Europe’s elite competition.
This could be dismissed as mere oddity if the same were not true of Saka and the England team. He made his first competitive start as an attacker in England’s third group game of Euro 2020 and immediately became a fixture that nobody could perceive being without.
Fast forward just over two years and Saka was named England’s Player of the Season for the second campaign in a row. Mate, it’s not supposed to be this easy.
The great magic of Saka – and, probably the explanation for the above – is that he doesn’t seem to really have form. Instead, just a gently undulating wave of extreme overachievement. In December, there was some suggestion that Saka’s output had slumped at Arsenal, which equated to no goals or assists in four league matches.
Take a step back, alter the angle of your viewpoint and then go again: Saka has 23 goals and assists for Arsenal this season and it’s early February. He got 26 last season. He’s 22. It’ll be fine.
People love Saka. Not just Arsenal supporters, although the rising murmur as he collects the ball at the Emirates must be enough to make his parents burst with pride. They see him as the personification of an entire movement, Arsenal’s Rockin’ All Over The World age of fun and accusations of over-celebrating.
If there are special corners of the heart reserved for academy graduates, local kids done good, Saka is the poster child of that too. We know Arsenal fans love him.
Instead, we’re talking about everyone else. Football supporters love Saka, because just watch him for five minutes. Casual fans love Saka, speaking about him in that reverential tone they save for a friend’s successful grandchild: “He seems such a lovely boy and isn’t he doing well for himself?”.
The reasonable supporters of rival teams make a deal with their own psyche, the if-I’m-allowed-to-like-one-player-from-them-then-it’s-him acceptance.
One theory is that this is a product of Saka’s simplicity as a player. There is prodigious skill, of course, but it’s all used to aid the very serious business of skipping past a full-back and pulling back a pass or cutting inside and shooting.
Saka gives the impression that every action is for the greater good of the team, never the individual. A dozen simple (to someone of his talent) actions completely without fuss to create something beautiful. Is that not a definition of art itself?
That combines with a transparency of personality, an endearing innocence, that makes Saka emphatically likeable. He doesn’t just seem comfortable coexisting on planes of serene normality and superstar talent, but as if it is his natural resting place.
It probably relates to his determination to recognise every step of the journey. Per Mertesacker, Arsenal’s academy manager, tells a story how Saka, after scoring his first club goal against Eintracht Frankfurt, immediately brought his match worn shirt and presented it to the academy for their keeping.
That innocence occasionally produces an effect that makes Saka appear deeply surprised by all of the fuss, like he has been woken up in the middle of a dream only to find life replicating it. This was best reflected in his reaction to the wall of support that Arsenal created with messages from supporters after the Euro 2020 final.
“How do I even say thank you for all of this?’ Saka says in the video. “Can I just pick it all up and take it home to keep?”
Even now on repeat, those words force a Pavlovian rush of happy-sadness. It is an extraordinary piece of footage that epitomises the person and the player.
Perhaps it is his faith or his upbringing. Perhaps it is simply a deep gratitude. But it is a great talent to understand the difference you make and yet treat it as nothing.
Saka has dealt with some s**t. Do not forget that just because the overwhelming result is healthy.
He has missed a penalty in a major tournament for England. He has dealt with grotesque racist abuse on multiple occasions. He has played a frankly obscene amount of football, 245 career matches at the age of 22 and five months.
Saka gets kicked repeatedly by opponents who know that to let him run is to let him run away from you. He deals with it all with impossibly good grace and unfathomable maturity given that most of it happened to a teenager.
But it creates an irony: it is Saka’s consistency that is most exceptional. It should be enough to make us holler and shout and provoke social media compilations and inspire a cult army of followers. His is the career we dream for every young footballer, from playground to academy and on, accelerating away towards accidental superstardom like a time-lapse video.
And yet, because Saka seemed to arrive somehow fully formed into the Arsenal team and only improved from there, all we do is nod and smile slightly and say “Well yeah”. Peak and trough and people will notice your rearrival, but keep on keeping on brilliantly and the complacency of your critics becomes your enemy. The cross to bear for quiet overachievement is that people tend to follow your lead and forget to make a sound.
So let’s remember: none of this is normal. Saka is about to hit 50 goals and 50 assists for Arsenal despite still being the youngest player to play for them in the league this season. We take Saka for granted and I really don’t think we talk about it enough.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/YFUThjR
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