Gareth Southgate did not want The Impossible Job. The clue was in the title and it really did feel as if they were the words that followed any reference to the role of England manager. It went even deeper for Southgate, of course – back to Euro 96 and his decisive penalty miss in the semi‑final shootout defeat by Germany.
Southgate was scarred for life. He was too scared and when the job came up after Roy Hodgson’s departure following the Iceland disaster at Euro 2016, Southgate made clear that he was not interested. He felt he had let everybody down during that much-romanticised summer 20 years previously and there was no way he would run the risk of doing so again. And yet this was not to be his path.
