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England captain Harry Kane has admitted the pain of European Championship final defeat was no easier second time around.
The 31-year-old Bayern Munich striker led the nation into their showdown with Spain in Berlin this summer and saw them end up on the wrong end of a 2-1 scoreline, three years after they had lost to Italy in a penalty shoot-out at Wembley.
Asked if the pain of defeat was any easier to deal with at the second time of asking, Kane said: “No, it’s not easier. Every defeat is different in their own way. It’s tough.
“Whenever you get so close to reaching one of the pinnacles of your international career and it’s taken away like that, it’s really difficult.
“But ultimately, life moves on. You have to move on, you have to move on, you have to get up and go again and from my point of view, it just makes me even more motivated.
“It puts the fire in the belly to try to get back there again in a major tournament, try to get back there in a World Cup and have a different outcome next time.”
England, who launch their Nations League campaign against the Republic of Ireland in Dublin on Saturday evening, struggled to reach their fluent best during the tournament in Germany, where they were eventually undone by Mikel Oyarzabal’s 86th-minute strike in the final.
Asked for his reflections on a challenging few weeks, Kane said: “I think we did extremely well to get to the final.
As a team, we can take a lot of positives from the summer, a lot of positives from the last four years especially— England captain Harry Kane
“It wasn’t an easy tournament. I don’t think we reached the levels in a lot of the games that we know we can, but the positive thing from that is the fact that we got to the final.
“As a team, we can take a lot of positives from the summer, a lot of positives from the last four years especially.
“But ultimately, it’s about improving and there are areas that we can improve, especially in the games when we look back at the summer, so that’s now our task as players, to try to get better and these games in the next few days are a great opportunity to do that.”
The final proved to be manager Gareth Southgate’s last game in charge and caretaker Lee Carsley, a former Ireland international, will be in the dug-out at the Aviva Stadium.
Kane, who revealed he had spoken briefly to Southgate after his departure was announced, said: “To get to two finals in four years means you’re doing a lot of things right, but ultimately you need to have a few fresh ideas and a few different ways you want to try to improve and that’s what the boss has come in to try to do.
“There’s always room for improvement, we know that, like I touched on in the summer.
“It was great to get to the final, but we know there were areas where we could have been better and now it’s about trying to implement that up until the World Cup in a couple of years.
“I’m excited for that opportunity and I think everyone is just ready to go out there and give that a go, starting tomorrow.”
