We have proved we can live with the best, says Southgate

Manager proud after ‘incredible experience’ Kane defended after below-par performance

FOOTBALL NEWS CORRESPONDENT in Moscow

Gareth Southgate told his heartbroken England players he could not be prouder of them and vowed they would bounce back stronger from narrowly missing out on a place in the World Cup final.

Kieran Trippier gave England a semi-final lead against Croatia, but Ivan Perisic equalised before Mario Mandzukic scored an extra-time winner to clinch a spot against France in the final in the same stadium on Sunday aftermoon.

England fans inside the Luzhniki Stadium here stayed behind to give manager Southgate and his players a heroes’ send-off, even breaking into an impromptu rendition of the Oasis hit Don’t Look Back In Anger.

Harry Kane, the captain, admitted the pain of defeat would take him and his team-mates some time to get over, but Southgate was confident England now had a bright future.

“The reaction from the fans at the end shows you they’ve given everything,” said Southgate. “We’ve come an incredibly long way in a short space of time. The whole thing is beyond where we thought we might go. Tonight we weren’t quite there. But the team will be stronger for it. We want to be a team who are hitting quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals.

“Now we have a new benchmark, a new level of expectation, a new scenario. But many of these players have come of age on an international stage. I couldn’t be prouder with what they’ve done.

“For everybody in our party, I wanted them to create memories that are with them for ever, for them and for others.

“I think we have all had an incredible experience. For me, that is what sport should be about. The players have played and conducted themselves in a manner that has absolutely done that.

“If we have brought joy back home, which I know we have, then that’s been worthwhile. We should be proud of that. We’re hugely disappointed not to take the country one step further and give them everything they hoped for. But, in time, I’m sure we’ll reflect upon the progress we’ve made.”

Kane, who remains on course to win the Golden Boot for the top scorer at the finals, said: “It hurts, it’ll hurt for a while, but we can hold our heads up high. It was a fantastic journey, we got further than anyone thought we could, we’ve just got to learn from it.

“It’s tough. We’re gutted, you know. We worked so hard. The fans were amazing. It was a tough game, a 50-50 game. I’m sure there was stuff we could have done better, but we worked as hard as we could.

“We created some good chances, being 1-0 up. Maybe we dropped too deep at times. In big games, it’s small margins. There’s a lot we could have done better, but they played well. It’s been great to get to this stage, but we wanted to go on and win it.

“We’ve fallen a bit short. It just hurts. It shows we can win knockout games – the next stage is to go one further. We’ve got to dust ourselves down and go again in a couple of years. ”

Trippier was forced off in extra time with an injury. Kane’s performance was subdued, something that Southgate was asked about.

“I’d need to look back again at it,” said Southgate. “He’s given absolutely everything for the team. He’s captained the team brilliantly throughout this tournament. I can’t ask more of him as a captain or as a man over the last three weeks.”

England must stay in Russia to play for third and fourth place against Belgium in St Petersburg on Saturday and Southgate added: “The honest thing is, it’s not a game any team wants to play in. We will want to give a performance of huge pride, no question about that.

“Every time we wear the shirt of our national team, we want to play with pride and play well and win. It will be a really difficult task to assess everybody over the next 24 hours and get them mentally back to where we want them to be for a game like that, but that will be the challenge.”

Croatia midfielder Luka Modric said the English had erred in believing his side would be exhausted for last night’s match, having had to go to penalties in their two previous matches. “English journalists, pundits from television, they underestimated Croatia tonight and that was a huge mistake,” he said. “All these words from them we take, we were reading and we were saying, ‘OK, today we will see who will be tired.’”

Team-mate Sime Vrsaljko was also scathing of England. “The allround perception was that this is a new-look England who have changed their ways of punting long balls upfield but when we pressed them it turned out that they haven’t.”

Asked why his side had won, Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic said: “Because we were the better team in all segments of the game.”