Damien Duff has described England losing on penalties as 'awful to see' after their Euro 2020 heartbreak.
The Three Lions lost the final in the cruellest of ways and youngsters Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka all missed from the spot.
And Duff said that he was sad to see the youngsters miss their opportunity.
Speaking on RTE's coverage of Sunday's final, he said: "It's awful to see, especially the three young boys. Even Rashford and his off the pitch stuff, an incredible guy.
"Listen, let's not take anything away from Italy. For me, they were the best team in the tournament, what a job Mancini has done, 34 games unbeaten.
"Incredible job, especially after what they call the apocalypse in 2018. It's also ironic that all we've been hearing is the song Football's Coming Home all summer but Italy also think they created the game in the late 1800s so it actually is still going home to Rome."
And Liam Brady added that the task should have been handed to more experienced players.
"They may have been taking them very well in training and I think Southgate had a plan with Rashford and Sancho coming on but to give the last penalty there to the young Arsenal boy there when there was so much experience there in waiting, I don't know.
"I think Italy deserved to win it without any doubt. I think over the course of the tournament they were the best team and maybe suffered a bit against Spain and tonight even after going a goal down they played great to get back into the game and it's a lottery penalties but I think the best team won on the night."
And Didi Hamann also added that blame should be pointed in Gareth Southgate's direction.
"Only themselves them blame, I think the manager has to take a lot of responsibility. They didn't have a plan and they didn't have a plan three years ago.
"They scored early against Croatia and this is a young squad and they had two big games in the last three years and they scored early and it is obviously what you want and they didn't have the answers. "
