Kane says England are ‘missing that final piece’ after World Cup heartbreak against Argentina | OneFootball

Harry Kane says England are “missing that final piece” after being knocked out of the World Cup in the semi finals by Argentina.

Anthony Gordon had given England the lead in the second half but late goals from Enzo Fernandez and Lautaro Martinez fired Argentina into the World Cup final, where they will take on Spain.

“We played a good game for the large majority of it,” Kane reflected, speaking to BBC Sport. “Once we went 1-0 up, we seemed to just try and hold on, which at this level, it’s not enough.

“Just gutted, because we’ve worked so hard to be here and the lads have given every bit of running, blood, sweat, tears, so to fall short like we did today is just gutting.

“After the goal, whether it was them putting more men forward or us just not being able to match them man for man, it was just wave after wave and we were trying to hold on. In the end it wasn’t enough.

“When we went ahead, the messaging was to go again and get another goal. Once they scored their two goals obviously we had to try and find something but we couldn’t quite get the momentum back in the game.”

This was the second World Cup semi final Kane has reached, having also been knocked out by Croatia in 2018, and by France in the quarter finals in 2022.

“We had a lot of good moments in this tournament,” Kane continued. “A lot of good games, another semi final. We’ve spoken about knocking on the door. We’re close, we just need to find that missing piece in the final stage of the tournament.

“These tournaments take it out of you. So much effort and pressure and mentality, and we’ve shown a lot of that over the whole six or seven weeks we’ve been together, but yeah, we’re just missing that final piece.”