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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Sport
Alex Young

Harry Kane: England among the best teams at World Cup 2022, we cannot have regrets

England captain Harry Kane says the Three Lions squad believe they are among the best teams left in the World Cup as the prepare to face France in the quarter-finals.

The Three Lions dispatched Senegal 3-0 with relative ease to set up a date with the world champions on Saturday for a place in the last four.

England are looking to reach their second consecutive World Cup semi-final, where they lost 2-1 to Croatia, 18 months after losing the Euro 2020 final to Italy on penalties.

Kane told ITV: "When we look back to 2018, [reaching the semi-final] was probably further than what anyone thought we would be. Since then, getting to a Euro final and where we are now, we expected to be here. The quarter-final isn't what we've come here for."

England have continued to grow under manager Gareth Southgate. The Three Lions have won 15 knockout tournament games in their history, six of those have come under Southgate.

Kane continued: "We've come here to go all the way. There's no need to fear any team in this tournament but we have to make sure we're ready for a really strong side. That's one our biggest strengths, we understand the situation, we understand it's going to be a really tough game, we've been here before. But also we understand we're one of the best teams in the tournament and we've got to show that.

"Maybe it's a mindset or a lack of belief but I don't see that among this team. We believe in ourselves, we believe in the project that we've been doing for five years since Gareth has been manager.

"We'll go with the same game. In a game of football, anything can happen. You can lose being the best team. But the most important thing for us is these games don't come around too often and we've got to make sure we have no regrets at the end of it."

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