The anguish knows no bounds. The final that Gareth Southgate wanted to win so much that it hurt is lost. Fifty-eight years of pent-up anguish will now stretch to 60 at least, with England condemned at a second straight European Championship to the sickening sensation of letting the ultimate prize slip.
Once more, it is the hope that kills. An entire nation had willed this team to produce the game of their lives, to shrug off the decades of pain as a mere historical detail. Except Spain, by a distance the finest team at this tournament, shredded the script, with Mikel Oyarzabal’s late goal bringing back the nausea of the near-miss, the desolation of tasting glory........