Three penalty failures walk into a Pizza Hut; the youngest marking the recency of his crime with a paper bag over his head. Cajoled by his teammates — who had also cost England a place in the final of a major championship — the incognito footballer polishes off a slice of pizza, scrunches up the bag and seemingly bypasses all seven stages of grief.
Twelve England players have missed a penalty in a shootout at the World Cup or Euros, but Gareth Southgate’s coping process remains the most infamous. The 1996 advertisement featuring Southgate along with Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle — whose misses at the World Cup six years ago cost England the match against West Germany — could easily have been career suicide in today’s times of gifs and memes. It was panned and Southgate accused of cashing in on the nation’s still-smarting heartbreak. The defender, by his own admission, was merely looking for some therapy after the decisive miss against eventual champions Germany in the Euro semifinal at Wembley merely months ago.
“If it was about money I could have cashed in 10 times over,” he told The Independent. “It was quite a good therapy session for me, sitting down with Stuart and Chris and talking about it.”