Bukayo Saka rues limited World Cup role despite historic hattrick

The Arsenal star inspired the Three Lions to a thrilling 6-4 victory in Saturday night's third-place play-off in Miami, helping England secure the bronze medal. 

Reflecting on his performance, Saka said he felt fully fit and capable of playing a bigger role in the latter stages of the tournament. 

"I'd say as a collective this is what we discussed, we deserve to finish strong for the tournament that we have. We deserve to finish in a high position that England have seen for 60 years,” Saka said.

“This group deserves nothing less and that was the mentality and you saw that in the first half, we played a perfect first half and ultimately that won us the game. On a personal level as well I've worked so hard to try and get myself ready for this tournament and be available to produce moments like that. 

“For me it's an incredible achievement, like you said there's only three other achievements that have done it. So, yeah that's a nice record to have now and I'm proud of myself to achieve that."

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The game against France – for third place at the World Cup – was one many footballers wouldn’t have wanted to play. But Saka was only happy to take the chance.

"Yeah this game was very important for us to win like I said and finish strong and yeah for myself this was a game that most players wouldn't have wanted to play but more so me, I was happy to play and get some more minutes and enjoy the last game of the World Cup,” he added. 

“It only comes every four years and yeah, I'm happy that I got rewarded, scoring a hattrick and yeah, it's going down in the history books, that just shows to the mentality of the team how much we wanted it and how much we wanted to make the country proud.