LONDON: England can finally end 55 years of major tournament misery with a Euro 2020 semi-final victory against Denmark on Wednesday, after Italy beat Spain in a dramatic penalty shoot-out to book their place in the final.
Gareth Southgate’s side are bidding to reach the European Championship final for the first time as they try to banish the ghosts of England’s ill-fated past.
Since winning the 1966 World Cup, England have reached only four major semi-finals, losing at the 1990 and 2018 World Cups, as well as Euro 1968 and 1996, when Southgate infamously missed a crucial penalty in the shoot-out against Germany.
Those agonising defeats have been etched in the psyche of English football ever since.
But Southgate has overseen the emergence of a…
