How quickly can your life change? How small is the margin that separates triumph from disaster?
For 16 months, Fankaty Dabo has struggled with these questions. The side now watches them at Stark’s Park, Kirkcaldy. He might as well have done it from the dizzying heights of the English Premier League.
Towards the end of the 2022-23 season, Dabo and his Coventry City teammates came from behind to finish in the Championship play-off places by one point.
After a goalless draw, they won at Middlesbrough in the second leg of the semi-final. Luton Town awaited them in the final at Wembley on May 27.
Worth an estimated £140 million to the victor, a predictably tense affair unfolded between two teams who had met in League Two five years earlier.
In front of 85,711 fans, the Hatters took the lead at half-time thanks to Jordan Clark, but Gustavo Hamer equalized for Mark Robins’ men. With no more goals in extra time, the most lucrative match of all was resolved in a penalty shootout.
Fankaty Dabo can’t believe it after seeing his penalty attempt fly high and wide at Wembley.
Dabo steps up in sudden death but fails to trouble Luton goalkeeper Ethan Horvath
The former Chelsea youth player struggles to assimilate the enormity of his penalty miss
Dabo, who was not named in the Sky Blues’ top five takers, watched as penalty after penalty was converted with unerring precision. The moment former Kilmarnock midfielder Liam Kelly found the trap at the tenth attempt, the full-back’s heart skipped a beat.
With his prayer for Dan Potts to miss Luton’s sixth try unanswered, Dabo trudged forward and located the ball.
“It’s a long walk, although I didn’t feel any pressure going up,” he recalled. ‘Someone was talking to me, but I just got distracted.
“But when you really put the ball down and realize the task at hand, as simple as it may be, the pressure becomes much greater.”
“And for me the pressure was felt more because I knew I had to score, not only to keep us in the penalty shootout, but to not disappoint anyone.”
‘I was confident. I said I wanted to take a penalty. They didn’t impose it on me.
Coventry players comfort teammate immediately after Wembley
Players in those moments often talk about being in the zone. Dabo’s fall was due to him momentarily abandoning his.
In the blink of an eye, he leaned back and lifted the ball over the bar. The joy of the Luton fans lodged behind the goal was unbridled. The other end of the stadium was a scene of total devastation. How cruel that the hopes of a season come down to this.
“I felt like I had let a lot of people down because playing in the Premier League is not only lucrative, but it’s also rewarding because it’s people’s dream,” Dabo recalled.
“So missing the penalty was like it stopped a lot of people’s dreams. “I’ve always been one to take responsibility and put a lot of pressure on myself for others, that’s how I felt at the time.”
What followed was depressingly predictable. Like Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka after England’s ill-fated Euro 2020 final against Italy, Dabo was subjected to abhorrent racist abuse online.
“They warned me, but thank God I didn’t see it because I don’t know how I would have reacted,” he said. “There are a lot of people who are much better off than ignorant people who make stupid comments.”
Dabo has now pitched for Kirkcaldy as he attempts to rebuild his career with Raith Rovers.
The sheer brutality of football became clear to him in the days that followed.
The former Chelsea trainee had had loan spells at Swindon, Vitesse and Sparta Rotterdam in the hope that could lead to a breakthrough at Stamford Bridge.
When that failed to materialise, he signed for Coventry in 2019 in the hope of helping awaken one of England’s sleeping giants. It helped knock them out of League One, but that aberrant moment would ensure the journey was not completed.
That night, while the confetti was still spinning in the air, Robins took him aside and told him he no longer met his requirements. Talk about adding insult to injury.
“The coach and I had a dialogue from the beginning of the season,” the 28-year-old recalled. “But I really found out after the game at Wembley, which was the icing on the shit cake.”
‘It is what it is. This is football and the industry we are in. You know what you’re going to get half the time, so it’s just a matter of facing it and moving on.
Coventry boss Robins consoles Dabo… but later that day told the player he would be released.
‘You have signs in life; you have hunches. It is what it is and I have no hard feelings. “It’s just football.”
After a summer of lonely suffering, he would have had a right to believe he was due for a break. If only it were that simple.
He signed for Forest Green Rovers at the beginning of September and found the ambitious Gloucestershire club inexorably in free fall.
When manager David Horseman was replaced by Troy Deeney earlier in the year, things got even worse.
Unable to arrest the decline during a chaotic 29-day tenure, the former Watford striker publicly lambasted his players, with Dabo at the center of his ire after a defeat at Harrogate Town.
“I told him in front of everyone that six months ago you really wanted to get to the Premier League. Now you won’t even be able to play in the National League,” Deeney said to the astonishment of the assembled media.
Dabo insists he was confident going up to take the penalty and will not let his miss define him.
Deeney’s behavior was disgraceful, but there is always the danger of mud sticking.
In fact, Forest Green were relegated to the National League under Steve Cotterill and Dabo, despite appearing 35 times, was again released and left to contemplate his future.
But the former England youth international’s remarkable story is not over yet.
Unveiled as Raith Rovers’ latest signing earlier this week on a contract until January, the player arrives in Fife hoping that a change of surroundings could bring a change of fortunes. Certainly something belongs to him.
And while he can’t change the recent past, the Scottish Championship could prove to be where he carves out a brighter future under Neill Collins.
“I’m delighted to be here and looking forward to getting back to playing and enjoying football,” he said ahead of this weekend’s game against Falkirk.
Dabo could make his Rovers debut this weekend at home to Championship giants Falkirk.
“My agent told me that there are better players who have missed bigger penalties than me. John Terry missed one in a Champions League final and his career was still amazing. He wasn’t defined by that missed penalty.
So, it’s just another piece of my own puzzle; or another piece of my armor. I don’t feel that a poor quality penalty defines me.
“I hope I can stay fit and it’s a new chapter and story to tell.”