‘Saka Spelling School’: Who is the smartest English football player from the Three Lions?

Saving, shooting and scoring. Three things that the Three Lions have proven to be good at as they make their way to the quarter finals of the 2022 Qatar World Cup. However, are they any good at spelling?

While Gareth Southgate’s team have been living out in Doha, the squad have found ways to entertain themselves including a particularly educating game.

Three-time World Cup goalscorer Bukayo Saka has been challenging his team mates on TikTok in a series called ‘Saka’s Spelling School’, to spell out certain words such as entrepreneur, embarrassed and pronunciation.

Saka’s series has been viewed nearly 20 million times on the social media application with Declan Rice, Marcus Rashford and Jack Grealish all failing to spell the words correctly.

In comparison, Saka was then challenged by Leicester City’s James Maddison to see if he would be up to the test of the Qatar spelling bee, poised with the word ‘nauseous’.

Watch Saka spell 'nauseous' here

The 21-year-old calmly responded by spelling the sickly word correctly thus thrashing his opponents.

The Saka Spelling School comes after news broke about the striker’s excellent school grades, proving he is just as impressive in the classroom as he is on the pitch.

In an interview, the young Arsenal player revealed he had earned four A*s and three A’s in his GCSEs when he sat them in 2018, just six months before his debut for the Premier League side.

He said: “My mum and dad always encouraged me. They never stopped me from playing football, they just wanted to see a balance and that I was also interested in my education.”

In light of this, People World takes a look at how other Premier League and Three Lion players fared in school:

Marcus Rashford

Much like Saka, Marcus Rashford juggled school and signing at Old Trafford after he joined Manchester United’s first team in 2016.

Marcus has proven successful when working on several projects at once as the striker helped tackle the government’s free school meals programme while working for the Red Devils.

Therefore, it comes as no surprise that Marcus walked away from school with nine GCSEs and continued to study for his A Levels, despite his professional career taking off.

Harry Kane

Our Three Lions skipper went to the same school as England legend David Beckham, namely Chingford Foundation School.

Former PE teacher Mark Leadon said Kane was a ‘model student’ who excelled both on the football field and in the classroom as he made sure to study hard.

Leadon mentioned Kane’s incredible work ethic which pushed him to pass all of his exams, and now can be seen as the Spurs player works hard to get his team through the quarter-finals against France.

Harry Maguire

Echoing Bukayo Saka, defender Harry Maguire acquired a flurry of A*s for his GCSEs and was told he could have been an accountant if not for his football skills.

Harry’s former head teacher said: “He had his head screwed on even at that age. He did everything you asked him to do and he never questioned why… He got A* and A grades in his GCSEs.”

Here’s hoping our Three Lions excel at this next World Cup ‘exam’ against France.