Three years after missing in the penalty shoot-out final defeat at the hands of Italy, Saka fired home a brilliant equaliser with 10 minutes remaining with the Three Lions staring down the barrel of a defeat.
And then he stepped up to score from the spot in another excruciating shoot-out as England booked a date in Dortmund on Wednesday night. Saka said: “I am going to put this up there as special. Last time we took a penalty shoot-out at the Euros we know what happened.
“I believed. I felt like we dominated the whole game and the chance would come and I took it - I am proud of myself for that. I have faith in God. To come back from something like that is really difficult - today I took the chance.
“I think, for me, it’s something I embrace. You can fail once but you have a choice whether you put yourself in that position again or not. I’m a guy who is going to put myself in that position. I believed in myself. When I saw the ball hit the net I was a very happy man.
“I’m not going to be focusing on the past. That’s done. I can only focus on now and taking a penalty. Of course I know there’s a lot of nervous people watching, my family included and in the crowd. But I kept my cool and I scored.
Bukayo Saka celebrates England beating Switzerland on penalties
“We know there are two more games until we can change our lives and make some history that’s never been made before. We’re really focused on that, we’re going to enjoy tonight and obviously focus on the next game. We’re going to watch the game, see who we’ll be facing and be ready for that when the time comes.”
England looked doomed when Breel Embolo put Switzerland ahead in the 75th minute. But Saka levelled with a brilliant strike from distance - and then stepped up to be counted when it really mattered.
Jordan Pickford saved Manuel Akanji, so when Cole Palmer, Jude Bellingham, Saka, Ivan Toney and Trent Alexander-Arnold also converted, England were through.
Saka added: ““I think it shows how much we want to win this tournament. Hopefully, next game we can win in 90 minutes but if this is what it takes – we will do anything!
“I believe we have some of the best penalty takers in the Premier League and the world. We talked about it before, that if it did go to penalties, we would be pretty confident. I’m happy we showed that today, we scored five out of five. We’re through to the next round.”
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