July 15, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nKane also suggested that England’s attempts to try and defend their lead worked against them.<\/p>\n
The likes of Dan Burn, Ezri Konsa and Nico O’Reilly were all brought on in place of Gordon, Reece James and Declan Rice in the closing stages.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Gutted for the boys, gutted for everyone \u2013 the team, the staff, the fans,” Kane added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We played a good game, the large majority of it. When we went 1-0 up, we seemed to try and hold on, which at this level is not enough.<\/p>\n
“So, just gutted because we’ve worked so hard to be here and the lads have given every last bit of running, blood, sweat, tears. So to fall short is just gutting.”<\/p>\n
For England, it’s yet more semi-final heartbreak.\u00a0Having won their first World Cup semi-final in 1966, England have now been eliminated in each of their last three matches at this stage (1990, 2018, 2026).<\/p>\n
There are just two occasions of a team scoring first in the semi-final but not reaching the final of the World Cup in the 21st century \u2013 both of them are England (vs Croatia in 2018 and Argentina in 2026).<\/p>\n
From the 56th minute of the\u00a0match, England\u00a0averaged just 12% possession up until Lautaro Martinez’s winner, and Kane was asked about his team’s struggles after going ahead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We struggled to get pressure on the ball,” Kane said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Especially first half and start of the second half, we pressed them well, we put them under\u00a0pressure high up the pitch, which then allowed us to win balls and control the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“After the goal, whether it was them putting more men forward or us not being able to match them man for man, it was just wave after wave.<\/p>\n
“Lads were putting blocks in but, in the end, it just wasn’t enough.”<\/p>\n
England will now play France in the third-place play-off at\u00a0Miami Stadium on Saturday.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Read More<\/a>SoccerNews Editorial Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Soccer England captain Harry Kane conceded that England were missing the “final piece” during their semi-final defeat to Argentina at the World Cup.\u00a0 Argentina advanced to Sunday’s World Cup final with a comeback 2-1 victory over England at Atlanta Stadium, with Enzo Fernandez and Lautaro Martinez on target.\u00a0 Following a cagey first half, Thomas Tuchel’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":920327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34585,35464,2005],"tags":[87584,10579],"class_list":["post-920326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-concedes","category-gutted","category-soccer","tag-concedes","tag-gutted"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/920327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}