There will not be many Englishmen more gutted at the national team’s 2018 FIFA World Cup semifinal loss, than captain Harry Kane and manager Gareth Southgate.
Harry Kane insisted England’s World Cup elimination at the hands of Croatia “hurts a lot” but believes they should be proud of their achievements and look to build on a “great foundation”.
The Three Lions suffered a 2-1 defeat to Croatia in extra time despite going ahead within five minutes after Kieran Trippier’s superb free-kick.
Croatia grew into the game towards the end of the match with Mario Mandzukic bagging the winning goal in the second half of extra time.
‘It is tough, we are gutted, we worked so hard and the fans were amazing,’ Kane told ITV.
‘It was a tough game, a 50-50 game, I’m sure we will look back and there is stuff we could’ve done better.
‘It hurts, it hurts a lot, but we can hold our heads up high – we have gone further than a lot of people thought we would do.
‘We created some good chances being 1-0 up, there are lots of ifs and buts and it is hard in these games, it is small margins and it went their way today.
‘Until they scored we were always under the cosh. There is a lot we could have done better but they played better.
‘Obviously it has been great to get to this stage and we know we have done everyone proud but we wanted to win.
It hurts, it just hurts. It shows we can be up here, that we can win knockout games, can get to semi-finals and the next step is to go one step further.
‘This is a great foundation we have built with the gaffer, we are proud of what we have achieved but we wanted more and are sad we couldn’t give our fans a final.’
England aren’t leaving Russia just yet as they face Belgium in the third place playoff match on Saturday as they look to cement their highest World Cup finish since 1966.
Croatia will now face France in the World Cup final on Sunday in Moscow.
Share Your Comments