In the space of only 55 days, England captain Steven Gerrard has seen his dreams of late-career glory with club and country slither through his fingers in acutely painful fashion.
After the trauma of Liverpool's home-straight collapse in the Premier League title race, the 34-year-old met with fresh heartbreak at the World Cup yesterday when Italy's 1-0 loss to Costa Rica condemned England to an embarrassing group-phase exit.
In an unfortunate harbinger of what was to come, Gerrard's words before England's 2-1 loss to Uruguay in Sao Paulo on Thursday prophesied the misery that now awaits him in the aftermath of his side's elimination.
He spoke of "a terrible, long, frustrating summer if we don't get it right" and said that early elimination from a major tournament "can take an awful long time to get over".
It is not the first time that Gerrard's words have returned to haunt him this year.
Following a stirring 3-2 win over Manchester City on April 27 that left Liverpool on course for the Premier League title, he was caught on camera passionately rallying his team-mates with the cry: "This does not slip!"
Two weeks later, it was a freak slip from Gerrard that let in Chelsea striker Demba Ba for a goal that decisively took the momentum in the title race away from Anfield and back towards City.
In another unfortunate case of deja vu, Gerrard was twice the source of England's undoing against Uruguay.
He supplied plenty of assists for Luis Suarez over the course of the Premier League campaign, but the Uruguayan could not have expected his club-mate's generosity to continue in Brazil.
Gerrard was at fault for both of Suarez's goals at the Corinthians Arena, giving the ball away in the build-up to his first and then inadvertently flicking a long punt from Uruguay goalkeeper Fernando Muslera into his path for the second.
