Comment: Always darkest before dawn and this is a bright new England era

“It feels like my stomach has been ripped out,” the Three Lions boss bluntly remarked, as he reflected on just how agonisingly close his team had come to glory.

A summer which had delivered so much joy had, nevertheless, ended in failure and as is traditional the England manager faced the media for a post-tournament debrief. This was a far less fraught affair than most in recent decades, not least that which followed Euro 2016 and the embarrassing exit to Iceland.

In the five years since, Southgate has transformed the landscape for English football, restoring hope and the connection between team and population.

Yet for all the undoubted progress and for all the manager deserves to feel pride in his achievements, it will be impossible for him to feel a sense of accomplishment without a trophy in his hands.

For Southgate, the coming days will inevitably be filled with a sense of regret and the constant pondering of what he might have done differently in the heat of Sunday’s battle with Italy.

Major tournament finals, if England supporters really need telling, are difficult to reach. Sunday was only the Three Lions’ second ever and the first for 55 years. Both have taken place at Wembley. There is unlikely to be another tournament, at least in Southgate’s reign, where England will be able to enjoy home comforts so much as they have these past few weeks. The good news is that the youth of Southgate’s squad – not to mention those on the fringes – suggests their best days should be ahead of them. His challenge is now to ensure that is the case.

For inspiration, England need not look far. France, beaten finalists at Euro 2016, won the World Cup two years later. Germany’s World Cup win in 2014 came after Joachim Low’s team had either been beaten finalists or semi-finalists in each of the previous four major tournaments.

That losing is part of learning was among the messages Southgate sought to get across yesterday, as he insisted his team is still yet to reach its peak. The next World Cup in Qatar is only 16 months away and England should be stronger for this experience, just as the memories of Russia 2018 surely served them well in recent weeks.

“If you want sustained success as a team you have to be constantly evolving, constantly improving, constantly finishing in those latter stages,” said Southgate.

“France went through what we went through. That is normally part of the process. The fact we have had the first signs of consistency, reaching a semi-final and now a final, has to be a step in the right direction.”

Still, such an emotional defeat will linger. Among the many questions asked of England’s manager yesterday was the nature of the support network in place for players, not least Bukayo Saka, the 19-year-old whose penalty, pushed away by Donnarumma, finally decided the outcome. In the hours since, Southgate’s decision to entrust such a high-pressure kick to such a young player has been pored over more than arguably any other in his reign. It will not have been a call made on a whim. Despite the cliché, club and national team managers have long ceased to consider penalty shoot-outs as a lottery. The practice and science is studied extensively, with Southgate and his assistant Steve Holland among the most meticulous.

England’s takers will have been well prepared yet the trouble with a shoot-out is that someone is always going to miss. Saka might be young but one of Southgate’s greatest strengths has been a willingness to place trust and responsibility in youth. For better and for worse in this tournament, he did not waver from such belief.

After the high of beating Germany and the history-making semi-final triumph over Denmark, the overriding emotion now is pain. Yet if Southgate and his players can build on the experience of this summer, the biggest successes should yet be ahead.