This was not Harry’s game. It was not his or England’s tournament either and perhaps, once they have picked themselves off the floor from a traumatic, climactic night, they will acknowledge that something may indeed have changed forever. The sight of Harry Kane removing his armband, handing it to Kyle Walker and running to swap places with Ollie Watkins in the 61st minute was an oddly moving finale to his summer. This was not how anybody had envisaged his role in breaking a personal trophy drought and ending the hex upon his country, too.
As Spain celebrated in the centre circle Kane stood impassively in the technical area, putting emotions in order before making his way around his stricken, desolate teammates. He had hoped to crown his life’s work here but instead all the goals and individual accolades that, the day before, he had offered to swap for team success will have to stay put.
The consideration for Gareth Southgate, or anyone who succeeds him, should be that England have looked livelier and fresher in his absence for some weeks. Cole Palmer’s moment of brilliance may not have denied Spain the title they deserved but his impact and, perhaps more pertinently, the movement of a sprightly Watkins pointed to the future.
Two and a half hours previously, the possibility of fulfilment had remained intact. England’s bus had arrived at 7.29pm, winding its way past the woodlands and training pitches that surround Olympiastadion and depositing its inhabitants. It was striking to see Kane emerge first, five seconds before anyone else, setting a pace towards the dressing room without a glance backwards.
This was business, an impression cemented during the pre-match walkabout. Spain’s players were already mingling by the halfway line when Kane, again well ahead of the pack, led England out to absorb the scene. They were still there when he took them back in after the briefest of turns around the turf. The message, driven by the captain, seemed clear: any sightseeing in this strange, historic, discomfiting venue could wait.
In those few minutes, was Kane attempting to visualise the moment that could transform the narrative of an entire career? It is one of his favoured preparation methods: thinking about the touch, the turn, the near-post dart, the knee-high leap and twist in the air that write the record books. He had spoken in the week of England’s “aura”, a sheen and control acquired through learning semi-finals and finals need not be strangers.
The problem for Kane was that his own sense of inevitability had diminished. England had not exactly made it this far despite him, but they had needed fresh faces to solve old problems. It felt significant and new that Kane’s deputies, Ivan Toney and the newly history-enshrined Watkins, had done more to shift the dial on their panoramic journey here.
By half-time the awkward, gnawing sense was that England may need another such intervention. Broadly the game was going to plan: the wisdom had been that a drawn‑out stalemate would ultimately favour them. Spain were crossing aimlessly, while Lamine Yamal was peripheral. But Kane had hardly led the charge for England and it was little surprise, as the 20-minute mark passed, that he had not touched the ball.
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When he finally did, it resulted in a booking for the follow-through on Aymeric Laporte. The gruel was always going to be thin for England, particularly in those early moments when Spain sought to discover whether things might be resolved quickly. They needed to make the most of what pressure bursts they could muster, but Bukayo Saka spurned an invitation to find Walker on the overlap and Phil Foden was off balance when free at the far post.
Just before the whistle a moody Jude Bellingham exposed Dani Carvajal and finally Kane had his shooting chance. He has said he can remember each of his 406 career goals on demand, given a little thinking time: there have certainly been plenty from this kind of spot, on the edge of the penalty area, but Rodri hurled himself into a block. Any pictures painted in that earlier stroll had been splattered in red and navy.
From England’s perspective Kane had, at least, inadvertently brought about Rodri’s exit. Events seemed weighted in their favour now; perhaps his own, too. But what were Kane and Foden thinking when, neither pressing nor withdrawing, they let the substitute Martin Zubimendi waft between them and build the move that brought Nico Williams’ smoothly-taken opener?
There was an elephant in the room and England’s support addressed it in the 57th minute with loud chants of Watkins’s name. Even so, the speed of Southgate’s response came as a shock. The hero of Wednesday night was poised and the cruel joke might have been that Kane, recognising the situation’s gravity, moved with greater purpose than at any point in the night when his number came up.
While England applauded their fans five minutes after the end, Kane’s name was read out among six players to share the Euro 2024 Golden Boot. It was another prize for that conflicted trophy cabinet and almost felt cruel. The personal and collective grief were stark; so is the dilemma England may face in the next phase of their rebuild.
