© Pool via REUTERS
After England's national team lost in the European Championship final after an 11-meter penalty shootout against Italy, racist insults appeared on the internet, especially towards those English players who missed the penalties. Jadon Sancho, Bukayo Saka, and Marcus Rashford missed the penalties, and it is probably understandable where the racists could latch on. These players had to endure a lot of completely unjust criticism on social media. M. Rashford stood up for all these players and himself and commented on his Twitter account: "I can always accept criticism for my performance. My penalty kick was not good enough, it should have gone in, but I will never apologize for who I am and where I come from. I did not rush to take the penalty kick and hesitated, but unfortunately the result was not what everyone wanted. I felt like I let my teammates down. I felt like I disappointed everyone. I just needed to score that penalty. I can score penalty kicks in my sleep, so why couldn't I do it this time?" However, the "Man Utd" striker also saw some positivity: "The messages I received today were positively overwhelming, especially seeing the reaction in Withington, it really touched me. The communities that have always supported me, continue to support me."
