Here we go, oh! Bukayo Saka and fashion’s front row! The 21-year-old England star has yet to be seated next to Anna Wintour IRL but, as he arrives at the ES photo shoot in Stoke Newington with all the va-va voom swagger of his idol Thierry Henry, it’s obvious why the glit - terati are looking his way. He appraises a slick, all-green Dior ensemble as ‘10/10’, runs his eye over wardrobe’s AW looks — ‘Give me a few years and I’ll be suited and booted. Nothing but swag,’ he says — and is very, very nice to every - one on set. He’s all smiles, a delight, every inch the nation’s sweetheart. It’s the eyes, says Arsenal legend Ian Wright to me, by email. ‘He always looks you in the eye and has such a presence. There is a natural kindness to him off the pitch, but a steely determination on it.’ How could you be anything other than charmed?
Saka is the Premier League’s most beloved star, a generational giant in an Arsenal team with such heft and cut-through that Sir Keir Starmer namechecked Mikel Arteta’s men in his keynote speech at Labour’s conference in Liverpool (weirder still, they cheered). A country’s hopes, prayers and dreams are, somewhat ridiculously, pinned on him firing us to 2022 Qatar World Cup success this winter. England fans have just voted him their player of the year. Everyone loves him. I, however, have just dropped him from my fantasy football team. ‘Not good enough,’ he says, joking (I think), when I apologise. ‘This interview is over.’
Instead, we speak twice — once on the ES shoot, and once by phone a few weeks later as he’s getting a routine physio treatment after starring in England’s 3-3 draw with Germany. Is he exhausted? ‘Nah, ready and refreshed,’ he says, raring to go. We discuss his favourite footballers — Cristiano Ronaldo (he has his shirt, which he hasn’t washed), Alexis Sánchez (‘Oh my gosh, what a player’), Mesut Özil (‘not many players possess the quality, the understanding, the knowledge that he has of football’). We talk — albeit briefly — about the racist abuse he suffered after missing the decisive penalty for England against Italy in last summer’s Euro final. He was 19.
Four days after the game, he posted on Instagram: ‘I will not let that moment or the negativity I have received this week break me,’ adding, ‘love always wins.’ It does — and that’s the line he wants to draw under it, for now. Saka was welcomed back to Arsenal with a wall of letters from fans telling him what he means to them. ‘I have no clue how many I got through. I couldn’t tell you. I was there for days. I’d read a certain amount a day, then come for more the next day. That’s how I did it.’ One boy, Teddy, sent him his pocket money to make him feel better, a gesture so sweet and sincere that Saka invited him for a tour of the Emirates Stadium — and turned up with ice creams (chocolate and strawberry) for a kickabout with Teddy on the pitch. ‘And you know what? He still sends me videos when I score, saying well done, Bukayo. He’s a lovely kid. I think we’ll be in touch for quite a while. The fans show me a lot of love so I just try to repay that and engage with them.’
The Saka story starts in Ealing, west London. ‘I lived really close to Greenford High School, really close, about a 10-minute walk from school,’ he says. His teachers loved him: he was a model pupil, achieving four A*s and three As in his GCSEs, setting the school long jump record (it still stands to this day) and leaving everyone in the dust with his outrageous fitness levels. ‘In front of my house, when I was really, really young, we had a green area, a little pitch, where we used to play football every day after school with all the other kids in the neighbourhood, just enjoying every day until it started to get dark. Our parents would call us in for dinner, stuff like that, we’d have a shower, then eat dinner, do your homework. That’s pretty much how my days were.’
The Saka name is Nigerian, he tells me. ‘Obviously, we’re of Nigerian descent,’ he says, ‘that’s where my mum [Adenike] and dad [Yomi] grew up’ — they moved to the UK in the 1990s. And he’s got a massive family group chat, ‘not just the immediate family, everyone with the Saka name, so they’re always sending pictures on the group chat, saying how proud they are of me, and every time I put on that family shirt I know who I’m representing as well.’ His mum still cooks for him — they relocated to a bigger house in Hertfordshire in 2019, and he talks lovingly of piping hot bowls of jollof rice, egusi soup, the works (his name means ‘adds to happiness’ in Yoruba, which is, frankly, perfect).
I’m a normal person. I don’t want fans to not have access to me.
He’s been knocked down. He got back up again. ‘For me, it was always a dream,’ he says. ‘I was just enjoying my foot - ball, enjoying playing. You go from eight years old to 10, to 12, and you’re still playing. Then 14 years old comes, 16 comes, and you’re still playing. And you realise that you’re closer and closer. And then it finally happens. You make your debut. And from then on the journey actually starts, you know.’ Right now he is focused on Arsenal — we’re only a few games into the season, he says — ‘but yeah, the World Cup is always in the back of my mind. It’s the biggest tournament in the world.’ This summer, England’s Lionesses brought home the Uefa Women’s Euro 2022 trophy, England’s first since 1966, beating Germany 2-1 at Wembley in the final. Does that fire him up? ‘I was really happy for them. They made some history, a lot of history. I feel like there’s always fire in the belly, but seeing them do it… we’re all so proud. And we want to do it as well.’
Faith is everything to Bukayo Saka. ‘Two days in my childhood changed my life. One day I was in church, and I felt a real connection with God. I’ve no clue how old I was. I was small. But I feel like from that day I’ve been different. I’ve seen life differently. Another day was obviously when I was scouted by Arsenal. The Arsenal scout gave his card and number to my dad. Since then, it’s changed everything.’ His childhood church is a stone’s throw from Wembley, the national stadium’s great arch stretching away into the heavens. Coincidence? ‘God always has a plan, you know,’ he says. ‘When you play for your country, it means the world. You’re playing for a whole nation. You’re representing a whole nation. They’re all behind you, supporting you. It just means everything.’ He pauses. ‘And it’s important that people remember that.’
Has his life changed beyond recognition, then? He made his Arsenal debut in 2018, aged 17, in Ukraine of all places (‘It was so cold. Oh my gosh it was the coldest place I’ve ever been in my life’). In Amazon’s All Or Nothing documentary, as fly-on-the-wall camera crews were allowed exclusive access to Arsenal’s 21/22 season, he talks about the goldfish bowl he is living in. ‘Before I could just do normal things but I can’t really do them any more,’ Saka tells team-mates and fellow Hale End academy graduates Emile Smith Rowe and Folarin Balogun in the Arsenal canteen. On being mobbed by staff outside Waitrose, he adds: ‘Bro, I had my hood on, my mask like this [up to just underneath his eyeballs]. I don’t know what more I can do.’ But he tells me things have settled down, post-Covid. It isn’t all personal shoppers at Selfridges. ‘I went shopping yesterday at Sainsbury’s. It was actually fine. I had my hat and my mask, just put my head down and walked out. That’s just how I’ve got to be now, you know, when I go into public, if I don’t want to get recognised. But some days I still get recognised and it is what it is. It’s always nice to see my fans… sometimes to interact with them and just speak to them. Because I’m a normal person. I don’t want it to ever feel like they won’t have access to me.’
He walks the walk. On the photo shoot, he throws around hugs and handshakes like confetti. He has the most beautiful brown eyes. He jokes around in Yoruba with the world’s nic - est and smallest entourage (Ebi and Idz from his manage - ment team, who call him ‘B’). For a person so used to being all-action in his day job, he is patient, calm and laser-focused for the camera, all angles, arms behind his back, like a head boy on duty, albeit in a Dior sweater vest and Calvin Klein boxers. He really wants a box of Crunchy Nut cereal — his only demand, and even that’s quite sweet. He is exactly as nice as you’d want him to be. When he is asked to sign a piece of paper for somebody’s daughter, he asks all about her before he writes a thoughtful message, then insists on taking a photo. He’s funny, too. The photographer, Róża, tells him she is about to use a film camera from 1940. ‘Why don’t you get one from 2022?’ Age is a funny thing in his world, he tells me. ‘That’s just the way it’s viewed in football. It is what it is. If you’re 21, you’ve played a lot of games already. There are a lot of players that are 21 or 22 who do have over 50 to 100 games. So they can sort of be seen as mature. And when I was growing up I viewed it just the same. But you know, like, 30’s actually young in life. That’s why it’s just football.’
When we speak again, Saka has just been voted England’s player of the year. ‘And it’s the best players from each team in the country. The players I go to the camp with are very, very special. The quality I see all the time is through the roof. To be voted as the best player for England this year is one of the most special honours I’ve received.’ What could make it more special? ‘One wish. To win everything. What else can I ask for?’ A new car? ‘Nah. I don’t need a new car. To win everything and keep my mum happy and healthy is enough for me.’ I ask him if I should bring him back into my fantasy football team. ‘No, don’t put me back,’ he says, laughing. ‘You didn’t believe in me from the start.’ But I do now, Bukayo. I’m on the hype train.
We may be a small country, but we’re a great one, too. The country of Bukayo Saka’s right foot. Bukayo Saka’s left foot, come to that. And, in these trying times, he’s about the only person bringing the sunshine.
