Halfway to the greatest night in modern English football history. Halfway to a complete performance, halfway to proving that they could beat top sides, with young English players passing the ball and opening them up. It was halfway to Sunday’s World Cup final. Halfway, and so far from being enough.
Those facts, or rather that one huge fact, pulls the emotions in both directions after this long painful night at the Luzhniki. This ground that England were hoping to return to, to face France on Sunday. They were 22 minutes away from making it back here, before Ivan Perisic grabbed it away.
First there is pride, the pride of the England fans who stayed on to applaud the tearful players. That they got this far, this they came this close, and that they did so playing the way they did, with the players they have. The broader judgements can wait but this team has done more than anyone could have hoped for.
There is also sadness, and who knows tonight how long that will take to get over. That this thrilling team could not quite complete a job that they looked, for so much time, to be so assured at. But as the fans stayed in their seats, gone midnight, singing ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’, it felt unlikely that this defeat will prompt the same grief, the same soul-searching and pained re-examination of national priorities as semi-final defeats of the past have done. Even if we accept that no England may ever get a better chance than this.
Because England threw everything they had at Croatia tonight, and they lost to a better team. Here, in the biggest game these players will ever play, England produced one half of excellent football, the best that they have played all tournament. They were fast, incisive, assertive and confident. A better version of themselves, of the Gareth Southgate identity, than they have been so far.
England took the lead, deserved it, and held it for more than an hour. They had chances to double their lead, the best to Harry Kane towards the end of the first half. Had they scored a second goal then who knows what would have happened next. Maybe that would have given them enough of a footing to survive the Croatian wave that eventually broke over them. But we will never know.
This will inevitably be compared to Turin 1990 and Wembley 1996 – those are judgements for the next few days – but there was a characteristic feel to the way the game went after England’s strong fast half. This team has been true to its pledge to write its own story this summer, but what they wrote read like something we have read before.
Be the first to comment