England struggling to shake horror of Euro 2016 humiliation against Iceland

There are some anniversaries which are easier to forget, a day to pull up the bed covers and blank out 24 hours, and there will be those involved with the England football team who will be approaching Tuesday, June 27 with a shiver down their spine, one year on from the humiliation of the Euro 2016 elimination against Iceland.

England have had their ups and downs in major tournaments -- plenty more downs than ups, it must be said -- but losing to a team from a country with a population of just over 300,000 in Nice last June was as bad as it gets.

The 1-0 defeat to the United States in the 1950 World Cup in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, had always been regarded as the nadir of English football, but in the modern era at least, Iceland has become the one-word summation of the spiral of failure which the England team has become locked into.

The newspaper headlines which followed captured the mood of an angry footballing nation.

"Cod Help Us," raged the Daily Star; "Clueless," screamed the Daily Express, with The Sun going for "Ice Wallies."

When England suffered a 2-0 defeat against the United States in Boston in 1993, they were greeted with headlines of "Yanks 2 Planks 0," just a year after manager Graham Taylor was pictured with a turnip on his head under a headline of "Swedes 2 Turnips 1," following the Euro 92 exit at the hands of Sweden.

Those headlines still make English football fans wince, more than 20 years on, but the pain from the Iceland defeat is still so raw that few of the main characters involved are prepared to talk about it.

Roy Hodgson, who resigned as manager immediately after the game in the press room of the Allianz Riviera Stadium, has since spoken about a "grieving process" in the wake of the defeat which cost him his job.

"I don't know whether you ever get over things that cause you pain," Hodgson said last December. "Perhaps you shouldn't relate this to deaths in families because it's a football match, but when something matters a lot to you, then unfortunately, where grieving is involved, do you ever really get over it? I don't know. I think there's always going to be that scar.''

It is a scar that has afflicted more than just Hodgson, however.

Many of the team that started against Iceland remain central to Gareth Southgate's plans going into Russia 2018, but the big characters, the ones supposedly earmarked to help lead England to success in France, have since suffered a turbulent 12 months.

Wayne Rooney, England's captain and goalscorer against Iceland, has lost his place in the international squad under Southgate and at 31, may be forced to contemplate a premature end to his England career.

His season at Manchester United following Euro 2016 was a huge disappointment in terms of appearances and goals, but how much stemmed from his performance against Iceland, when he simply could not influence the game from the midfield position he had identified as his own prior to the tournament?

Jose Mourinho was certainly not impressed, insisting in his first news conference as United manager that Rooney was not a midfielder, and so it has proved at Old Trafford.

And in goal against Iceland, Joe Hart was then England's undisputed first-choice, but he was at fault for both goals scored by Ragnar Sigurdsson and Kolbeinn Sigthorsson.

Hart's performance that night in Nice led to mountains of criticism, with many also citing his mistake in the 2-1 win against Wales when conceding a long-range Gareth Bale free-kick.

Hart had perhaps come to believe he was untouchable, but by the time he returned to Manchester City, Pep Guardiola had decided to cast him aside, ultimately loaning him to Torino, and the goalkeeper's reputation has not recovered since.

He remains England's No.1, but the return to fitness of Stoke City's Jack Butland and Jordon Pickford's emergence suggests that Hart's grip on his position is weaker than ever.

Bur while Hodgson, Rooney and Hart have been the biggest losers on a personal level, England as a team have yet to recover from the after-shock of the defeat against Iceland.

A year on, England are on to their third manager in a year, with Southgate replacing Hodgson's successor, Sam Allardyce, after he had taken charge of just one game, and the new man's record is unspectacular at best.

Southgate has taken charge of eight games, winning just three of them -- against Malta, Scotland and Lithuania.

England have won away just once since Euro 2016, under Allardyce against Slovakia last September, while games against the elite nations have resulted in a Wembley draw against Spain and defeats away to Germany and France.

They have the players -- Harry Kane, Dele Alli, John Stones, Marcus Rashford are all potentially top-quality -- and huge financial resources, but England are still suffering a post-Iceland hangover.

The England Under-20s showed signs of promise for the future by winning the U20 World Cup earlier this month and the U21s face Germany in the semifinals of the European U-21 Championships in Poland on Tuesday, so the future may be bright.

But as the Iceland anniversary looms large, England's senior team are still caught in a nightmare they are struggling to emerge from.

SOURCE;ESPN