It was a night never to be forgotten, in the end for Gareth Southgate’s penalty miss more than anything else.
When England took on Germany in Euro96 at Wembley, the whole country was behind the Three Lions.
That they were a Paul Gascoigne toe away from going through to their first major final since the 1966 World Cup made the pain even greater.
Now England manager, Southgate has recalled on the Fearne Cotton Happy Place podcast, cited by the Daily Star, just how badly his penalty miss affected some people.
“Some of the letters I had, although the negative comments always register more prominently in your mind, they were far outweighed by the positive letters and messages that I received,” he said.
“There were people who had suffered massive events in their life, the loss of close family, people who had disabled children, people who had lost their jobs.
“There was a guy in jail, he partly blamed me for getting arrested because he was rioting on the night that I missed the penalty!
“I’m prepared to take responsibility for a lot of things but not that.”
It’s an accepted fact that if you team win, lose or draw it will affect your mood.
Clearly, some supporters take things more to heart than others, but at least Southgate can look back on what must’ve been an incredibly dark time for him personally with some sort of closure.
Until he took them to the 2018 World Cup semi-finals, and another agonising loss, this time against Croatia, it was the closest they’d come to some semblance of real success.