HARRY KANE REACTS TO ENGLAND’S SEMI-FINAL DEFEAT
“I’m gutted for the boys, I’m gutted for everyone, the team, the staff, the fans,” Kane told the BBC.
“Yeah, we played a good game for the large majority of it. Once we went 1-0 up, we seemed to just try and hold on, which at this level is not enough.
“Just gutted, because we’ve worked so hard to be here. The lads have given every last bit of running, sweat, blood, tears.
“We struggled to get pressure on the ball. I thought, especially first half and start of the second half, we pressed them well. We put them under loads of pressure, especially high up the pitch, which then allowed us to win balls, control the game a little bit better.”
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He continued: “After the goal, whether it was them putting more men forward or us just not being able to match them man for man, it just was wave after wave. We were trying to hold on, the lads were putting blocks in, but in the end it wasn’t enough.
“The boys are always ready for any moment in the game. When we went ahead, the message was to go again and get another goal. Obviously, once they scored their two goals, it was to try and find something, but we couldn’t find it back in the game.”
Kane added: “We had a lot of good moments in this tournament. A lot of good games, another semi-final. We talked 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 with so much effort and pressure and mentality. We’ve shown a lot of that throughout the whole six, seven weeks we’ve been together.
“But we’re just missing that final piece.”