Gary Neville noticed what Steve Holland did to Bukayo Saka after England's penalty shootout victory

Gary Neville noticed what Steve Holland did to Bukayo Saka after he helped England reach the Euro 2024 semi finals.

With England trailing 1-0 to Switzerland in Dusseldorf after Breel Embolo found the net, Saka popped up with the equaliser courtesy of some individual brilliance on the right.

The game would then go all the way to penalties for England's first shoot-out since the Euro 2020 final against Italy.

On that occasion, Saka was one of three players to miss and his costly miss handed the Azzurri the trophy at Wembley.

He received monumental backlash and vile racist abuse by online trolls as a result.

But Saka showed immense mental strength to recover and after becoming one of the best penalty takers in the Premier League, had a redemption story of sorts against the Swiss.

Image: Getty

When it was his turn from 12 yards, he calmly rolled his penalty into the side-netting and sent Yann Sommer the wrong way.

Some compared Saka's penalty to Stuart Pearce making amends for an earlier miss at Euro 96.

And former England defender Neville picked up on an interaction Saka had with assistant coach Steve Holland, who made sure to highlight his heroics.

“Steve Holland is pointing to him there to say ‘look at what this kid has been through over this last three or four years’,” Neville said, speaking on ITV.

“He now has had a chance to correct it. It’s an absolutely amazing moment, it really is.”

England scored all five of their penalties, with Jordan Pickford making a crucial save to deny Manchester City's Manuel Akanji.

Saka has grown enormously since the last Euros and has only missed one penalty for Arsenal in 11 attempts.

Image: Getty

Speaking afterwards, he was adamant that he had complete confidence in his abilities.

“You can fail once but you have a choice whether you put yourself in that position again or not and I’m a guy that is going to put myself in that position," Saka said, as per The Guardian.

“It’s something I embrace. I believed in myself and when I saw the ball hit the net, I was a very happy man.

“I wasn’t focusing on the past – that’s done. I can only focus on now. Of course I know there’s lot of nervous people watching, my family included in the crowd, but I kept my cool and scored."