Italy’s World Cup nightmare reminds Gareth Southgate of England lows

To Gareth Southgate, it was a reminder of one of England’s darkest days. As Italy laboured to break down North Macedonia in Thursday night’s World Cup playoff, rushing their choices as the pressure rose inexorably, Southgate was taken back to Euro 2016 in France and the horror show that was the last-16 exit against Iceland – a defeat that would lead, in the end, to his appointment as the England manager.

On this occasion, Italy suffered the knockout blow late on, conceding the decisive goal in stoppage time, but it added up to the same thing – a tournament dream in ruins. The European champions will not be going to Qatar at the end of the year and the sense of shock remains profound.

“I think a part of it ended up being anxiety, the longer it went, as well … making the right decisions under pressure,” Southgate said. “That’s something we’ve spoken about a lot from when we took over because we had a game like that in France six years ago. Thursday night’s game reminded me a little bit of that. As it reminded me of Italy’s playoff with Sweden before the last World Cup [which they also lost] when you suddenly got the feel that, yeah, it was getting more and more tense.”

Delivering when the heat is on is the name of the game and Southgate had a message for his players after they met to prepare for the Wembley friendlies against Switzerland and Ivory Coast on Saturday and on Tuesday respectively.

“In terms of pressure, we will never … I said this to the players the other day … they’ll never experience pressure like they felt last summer,” Southgate said with a nod towards Euro 2020, which ended with the penalty shootout loss to Italy in the final. “To be in a European Championship where the majority of the games were at