Alas it was not to be. Perhaps it never was. A nation which had prayed to witness Gareth Southgate crowned the Lion King and England champions of Europe instead were confronted by Lion tamers.
Spain, the supreme artists of these Euros, killed millions of dreams stone dead and so the Great Wait goes on. Fifty eight years of famine and yet more to come. Have you swallowed the bitter disappointment yet? England had defied logic escaping more times than Houdini to make Berlin but if we expected another great rope trick we learned that odds cannot be defied forever.
Where Italy denied us our moment of glory at Wembley the Spanish did for Southgate and his siege men this time. Brutal truth: Spain played seven, won seven. Now say they didn't deserve their crown.
READ MORE: Three-way battle for Newcastle United 'target' as Chelsea and Liverpool switch plans READ MORE: Newcastle United's £210m new strength to boost Champions League hopes So how will Gareth be remembered? What will be his legacy? He admitted on the eve of conflict that it would depend on the result. He had even called himself "the problem" when things had been tough. Yet there had been such a lightning transformation.
Southgate had gone from sinner to potential saint in the flicker of a biased eye. All inside one crazy tournament. Verbally abused and pelted with plastic beer cups during a turgid group stage he somehow fashioned England's first ever major trophy final on foreign soil .
Could this possibly be the greate.
