Harry Kane was left heartbroken by another final defeat with the England captain admitting: “It’s an opportunity missed.”
The striker was taken off an hour into the 2-1 defeat to Spain at Berlin’s Olympiastadion having failed to make much of an impact on the showdown.
But after Cole Palmer, the substitute who had only been on the pitch for two and a half minutes, equalised, Kane rued his team-mates’ failure to grasp the momentum.
And speaking to ITV a few minutes after the full-time whistle was blown, crestfallen Kane said: “It's an opportunity missed. It's not easy to get to these finals. We've shown unbelievable resilience to get to the final but you have to take the chance when it comes.
"It's extremely painful. It's going to hurt for a long, long time. It's disappointing we couldn't win it for Gareth, we wanted to win it for him.
“Tough game. Hard to put into words how we're all feeling now. We did well to get back into the game and struggled to build on it. To concede late on is a really painful one to take. I don't know what to say.”
England were second best in a tense opening half but improved slightly after Nico Williams put Spain in front less than two minutes after the break - before Palmer had England dreaming once again.
Kane was asked if after a tournament of comebacks this was one too far for the Three Lions and they simply ran out of steam.
At the end stars such as Jude Bellingham and Declan Rice looked utterly exhausted after Spain’s Mikel Oyarzabal scored the winner by staying just onside.
But Kane, who has now lost seven finals for clubs and country, said tiredness should not be considered an excuse, adding: “We've been coming from behind all tournament, we know we've got that in the locker, the resilience we've shown. But we didn't take the next step and go on to win the game.
“I'm not too sure [if the previous comebacks had exhausted England]. In the first half we struggled, Spain played well and had us under pressure. Second half was a little better. We got the goal and felt we had the momentum but we couldn't keep it and got caught with the cross."
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2024-07-14T22:12:45Z dg43tfdfdgfd