Harry Kane says England are ‘grieving’ but backs Thomas Tuchel to stay on
Harry Kane, right, has thrown his weight behind Thomas Tuchel continuing as England head coach (Martin Rickett/PA)
Harry Kane admitted England will be “grieving” their World Cup heartbreak for some time to come although he backed Thomas Tuchel to stay on as head coach.
England were five minutes of normal time away from a first men’s final in 60 years but Argentina turned a 1-0 deficit in Atlanta on Wednesday into a 2-1 victory courtesy of two late goals.
While England rebounded with a dizzying 6-4 win over France in Saturday’s bronze-medal match in Miami, Kane believes he and his team-mates will be licking their wounds at their near-miss for a while.
“Of course we’re still feeling it from the other night, the emotion and the what ifs,” the England captain said. “That will be with us for a while now.
“We’re still in that grieving stage, the emotional stage, and we’ll be in that for the next few weeks.
“Every time you get closer, knock on the door. You think you’ve learned and you have but we just have to keep going.”
Tuchel’s tactics in the final half hour against Argentina, making a number of defensive substitutions that exposed England to wave after wave of attack from their opponents, have drawn scorn from far and wide.
Even Donald Trump questioned the decorated German’s approach, with the United States president flummoxed by how Kane was used after England had taken the lead via Anthony Gordon after 55 minutes.
But Kane, who revealed last week he had a round of golf with Trump around 18 months ago in Florida, threw his weight behind the England boss, who presided over their best result since their 1966 triumph.
“It’s our highest finish in 60 years,” Kane said. “The enthusiasm he has, the emotion he brings, the tactical experience he has. It doesn’t mean you’re going to get it right every time.
“He not only gave the players belief but he gave the country belief that it was our year. That is why it hurts even more than other years because everyone believed we were going all the way.
“Everyone has to process it. He has to process it himself. It won’t be until the next camp where you think about what the future holds and what the next target is.
“We’ll have conversations as captain and manager and with other team-mates and staff, to see where we can be better.”
In the aftermath of the Argentina defeat, Kane spoke cryptically about England “missing that final piece of the jigsaw”.
Elaborating further, the 32-year-old Bayern Munich striker added: “The last 30 minutes of Argentina is not the team we want to be.
“We spent a lot of time over the last two years talking about that situation, to attack those moments. The bottom line is we lost anyway.
“It’s easy to go away and talk about it. We need to get better at actually being in those situations.
“We can train, play the qualifiers… I think the Nations League will be big for us, against Spain and Croatia, big teams.
“Getting used to those big environments and finding our best form against those teams, like we did against France – albeit not in the most competitive match.
“We have to learn, improve. The coach will have improved from these learnings. I can talk as much as I want but ultimately it’s about showing it next time we’re in that situation.”
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