Харри Кэйн болон Английн шигшээ багийн Дэлхийн аваргын мөрөөдөл дахин тасарлаа

Another day, another superstar departs the World Cup stage. Mohamed Salah left in stunned silence. Cristiano Ronaldo left with a flurry of reminders of things he did a decade ago. Erling Haaland exited with a big grin, saying it had been the best experience of his life. Kylian Mbappe apologised before turning the airwaves blue in an otherwise articulate address.

So far, so very on-brand. And so it was with England captain Harry Kane in the labyrinth beneath Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Wednesday, a world-class centre-forward trying to find the right words, a time for platitudes not attitude, as he reflected on another profound disappointment. So near yet so far once more.

For the fifth consecutive tournament, England reached the later stages: World Cup semi-finalists in 2018, beaten on penalties in the final of Euro 2020, World Cup quarter-finalists in 2022, beaten in the final of Euro 2024 and now — in some ways the bitterest pill — beaten by Argentina in a World Cup semi-final, a 1-0 lead slipping through their fingers in the closing minutes.

Kane told reporters it was a “similar story to what’s happened in previous tournaments”, that he and his team-mates felt like everything was going to plan for an hour or so, “and then for one reason or another we struggled to keep the ball, struggled to put pressure on the ball”.

At that point you wondered whether he might point the finger at his coach Thomas Tuchel. But Kane would never play the blame game. When pushed, he said it was “not the time to talk about that”.

In another interview, he said Tuchel “would have been called a genius” if that flurry of defensive substitutions had got England over the line. “We win together and we lose together,” he said, and it was clear he included the coach in that.

But whether it is in the build-up to Saturday’s third-place play-off against France in Miami, or perhaps on the flight home after that, there will come a point when losing feels like a lonely experience for Kane. He will find himself replaying the Argentina defeat in his mind, trying to work out whether there was anything he could have done differently — or anything he can do differently in future to help England find what he called “the missing piece”.

The answer, in case you were thinking this was the gentle prelude to an attack on England’s record goalscorer, is almost certainly no. Kane, along with Jude Bellingham, has had a terrific tournament. The two of them have scored goals when the pressure has been on — “hero moments,” he called them at one stage — and have, in their contrasting ways, shown leadership and the big-game temperament that has eluded so many great English players on the World Cup stage in the past.

But this was another really big game that passed Kane by. He has played in four semi-finals and two finals for England and his record across those six matches amounts to one goal, following up after his penalty was saved in the Euro 2020 semi-final against Denmark. It is not damning or anything of the sort, but it is a disappointing record for a player of such great quality.

The problem isn’t Kane. The problem is that in so many of those games, England have shown so little interest in using their main attacking threat. In the Euro 2020 final against Italy, he barely got a sniff, such was England’s lack of adventure after taking an early lead. In the Euro 2024 semi-final against the Netherlands and final against Spain, struggling for fitness, he was substituted. Against Argentina, England demonstrated little attacking intent before taking the lead 10 minutes into the second half — and then showed less and less and less until they got what Tuchel’s fearful tactics deserved.

Kane is a top-class player. But he is not, like Messi, a football genius. He does not, like Haaland or peak Ronaldo, have the type of power and athleticism that calls to mind some kind of lab creation. He does not have the speed of Mbappe. He is a multi-functional centre-forward, but watching him crowded out by Cristian Romero and Lisandro Martinez on the rare occasions the ball came his way against Argentina brought a reminder that he is reliant on service and support from the players around him. In the past two tournaments, in which he has helped England reach a final and now a semi-final, there has been disappointingly little of that.

The belief has taken hold — based on his struggles at Euro 2024 and his successes at Bayern — that the only way Kane can function is with fast, incisive wingers supporting him.

But none of the six goals he scored at this World Cup came from that approach. There were two penalties, a header from a corner and another three — two headers, one thunderous right-foot shot — against deep-lying defences. When it comes to the expected goals (xG) metric, he has significantly outperformed the quality of the chances he has had.

Other than Kane and Bukayo Saka, who has struggled for fitness at this tournament, there has been so little continuity in England’s forward line in recent years. Raheem Sterling, Marcus Rashford, Jack Grealish, Phil Foden, Cole Palmer, Jarrod Bowen, Noni Madueke, Anthony Gordon… a degree of churn is to be expected, but some of those players’ dramatic loss of form at club level has not helped successive England managers. Neither has it helped Kane.

Gordon, after a slow start, has made some excellent contributions at this World Cup, but much of the time England’s attacking play has been too predictable. There were wonderfully incisive counter-attacks in the second half against Croatia, the first half against Mexico and for Gordon’s goal against Argentina, but there have also been long periods spent wondering where England’s next goal was coming from, if not a moment of brilliance from Kane or Bellingham.

That is what will frustrate Kane. At Bayern he plays alongside Michael Olise, Luis Diaz, Jamal Musiala and others under a coach, Vincent Kompany, who is committed to trying to dominate opponents in the Champions League as well as in the Bundesliga. For England, outside of qualifying matches, it so often ends up looking like a slog.

But he loves it. He reaffirmed that after Wednesday’s game. When he was asked whether, as he prepares to turn 33 in a few weeks, this might be his last World Cup, he replied that it was “too early to talk about that”, but that “the England national team is my pride and joy, it’s what I love to do most, more than anything”.

“Obviously four years is a long way away and I’m 33 in the summer,” he added. “But as you see at the other end with Leo (Lionel Messi) there, he’s still performing at the highest level. I never want to put a limit on these things. I’ll address every situation as they come.”

No England fan should wish Kane into international retirement. There is always a desire to look to the future after a tournament exit, but he has just had arguably the best season of his career at Bayern and was being touted as a potential winner of this year’s Ballon d’Or just a few days ago. There is no obvious candidate to take over from him as England’s centre-forward, whether short, medium or long-term.

He is right, though, when he says that the next World Cup, in 2030, feels distant. He might not get another chance. He can look at Messi, who finally won it at 35 and is leading Argentina to another final at 39, but Messi has long defied any kind of norm. Kane will keep going and keep scoring as thoughts turn to Euro 2028. At some point he and England need to change the record.