Have England become the Tottenham of international football?

The World Cup is brutal. England have known that for decades, experiencing just about every type of elimination since that isolated triumph on home soil in 1966. Where does Saturday night’s quarter-final fit into all that? 

DEJECTION: England's Harry Kane after missing from the penalty spot.

Didier Deschamps had been speaking for 10 minutes, expressing pride in the qualities that had taken his France team to within 90 minutes of a second successive World Cup final. He said they had been pushed close to their limits by strong opponents, lauding England’s technical ability and their intensity. “They’re so quick, so strong, so energetic, that we had to defend very well,” the France coach said. “It comes down to small details and luckily, tonight it went our way. You need a bit of luck sometimes.” It was everything an English audience wanted to hear: soft elevator music to bring comfort in that biennial moment of tristesse.

And then Deschamps said something a little more blunt. After praising the attitude his players had shown since this World Cup began — in every meeting, every mealtime and every training session — he said, “But none of it is worth anything if you don’t get the results.” Or, as his match-winner Olivier Giroud put it even more bluntly when he spoke to The Athletic on his way out of the stadium: “The truth of the pitch talked tonight.”