AL KHOR, Qatar — It is a mark of England’s improvement under Gareth Southgate that the failures at least are heroic again. After the years of damp squib exits, Saturday’s 2–1 loss to France, the reigning world champion, was a defeat that felt very much like the old days. The loss to West Germany in 1990, to Argentina in 1998 or to Portugal in 2004, full of near-misses and close-run things to be replayed over and over. There will be those who blame Southgate for the result, but the truth is England did not do much wrong. It played well and was beaten by a very good team in what was, by some distance, the highest-quality game of the tournament so far.
The closest of all those near misses, of course, was the penalty Harry Kane skied over the bar after 82 minutes. Players miss penalties. It happens. Kane is usually very good at them. The urge to blame the manager is always strong in football, particularly when that manager has been in position six years and familiarity has begun, in certain quarters, to breed contempt, but it doesn’t really apply here.
“They know how close they’ve come,” said Southgate, who was as measured as ever in his postmatch remarks.
