Let us look on the bright side. At least these England players will not be burdened with a daft tag like the Golden Generation.

Stuart Pearce will not have to worry about all that faintly ludicrous speculation linking him with Fabio Capello’s job after his team were crushed by Germany in the European Under-21 Championship final last night.

A broad view of a successful tournament for England would bring garlanded mentions for Kieran Gibbs and Jack Rodwell, and no doubt valuable lessons learnt by others, including the manager, but this was an occasion when only James Milner enhanced his credentials.

A two-year undefeated campaign had come to a chastening end and, while Pearce had talked regularly about making his players more streetwise like, well, the Germans, it is their opponents who now, unprecedentedly, hold European titles at under-17, under-19 and under-21 level.

It was enough to drive Pearce potty on the touchline. He almost launched himself at a Germany player for one bad foul and his ravings will have to be tempered if he is to progress in management. Despite his achievement in guiding England to their first final in 25 years, and the links to the senior team, there remains much work to be done to prove that he can do that.

Defeat will have been hard for him to take, not because it came against Germany, the country that inflicted heartbreak on him in Italia ’90 and Euro ’96, but because it was so devastatingly comprehensive.

The Germany players were joyously dousing Horst Hrubesch, Pearce’s opposite number, from their water bottles even before the final whistle.

Capello had not made it because he had been checking out training bases in South Africa, but he will not need to dwell too long on the video highlights.

They will show an England team who started brightly, but had so badly run out of attacking options that throwing Micah Richards up front was plan B.

The legacy of an extraordinary semi-final victory over Sweden had been needless suspensions for Gabriel Agbonlahor and Fraizer Campbell, which dictated that Theo Walcott would begin as a solitary striker.

The Arsenal flyer started brightly enough, dashing behind Germany’s defence as early as the third minute only to shoot wide from a tight angle.

Then two superb tackles by the commanding Mats Hummels thwarted Walcott when he attempted to race through on the counter-attack.