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21st Mar 2017

Andy Townsend shares the story of how Liam Gallagher consoled Gareth Southgate after that miss

"As I went to say it, Liam Gallagher appeared from nowhere..."

Simon Lloyd

A year and a couple of managers on from beating them in Berlin, England face Germany again this week in a friendly in Dortmund.

Given that this is now Gareth Southgate’s England, it’s no surprise to hear a few mentions of that Euro 96 semi-final in the build up to Wednesday’s match.

Southgate, then 25, was the man whose penalty miss cost the Three Lions a place in the final against the Czech Republic – a final that the Germans would go on and win.

Speaking on BBC 5 live on Monday evening, Andy Townsend, a teammate of Southgate’s at Aston Villa at the time, explained how former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher was one of the first people to console Southgate on his costly penalty miss.

“I was commentating when he missed his pen,” Townsend explains. “After the game, having missed a pen like that, I was so gutted for him that I thought I’d go down and find him.

“I was only going to say ‘look, better than you have missed them in that sort of situation, so don’t worry about it, it’s done.’

“As I went to say it, Liam Gallagher appeared from nowhere… He says ‘Hey, Gareth don’t *beep* worry about it ‘cos at least you had the *beep* to go up and take it. Them other *beep*, they didn’t wanna *beep* know.'”

“He’d literally said that and I kind of said ‘actually, in as many words mate, that’s what I was going to tell you.”

Catch up with this week’s episode of 888Sport Football Friday Live