Croatia staged a superb comeback against England coming from 1-0 down to win the match 2-1.
Ivan Perisic cancelled out Kieran Tripper’s free-kick goal in the 68th minute and then Mario Mandukic scored Croatia’s winning goal in extra-time.
It was clearly heartbreak for the England players who had a fine run during the whole tournament and not many pundits had predicted that the Three Lions would be knocked out of the semi-final.
But instead of hurling abuses at the players, the English fans were in a pretty joyous mood and provided their full support to the Three Lions after their World Cup exit.
And here’s what manager Gareth Southgate had to say after the loss:
“There’ll be a new benchmark and level of expectation,
“To become a winning team there are hurdles you have to overcome – and we’ve surpassed many of them.
“Many of our players have come of age on the international stage.
“At the moment we all feel the pain of defeat. I don’t think realistically we expected to be here, but once you’re here and played as well as we did, you want to take those opportunities in life,
“The dressing room is a difficult place at the moment. I’m remarkably proud of the group of players – the reaction of the supporters compared to two years ago shows the country are proud of the way we played.
“There will in time be lots of positives to take but it’s too hard and too soon to put that in context.
“You have to suffer the result first sometimes. I’m hugely proud of what we’ve done – I couldn’t have asked for any more. They’ve broken through a number of barriers in the past weeks.”
Read:Â Here’s how Croatia mocked England after the Three Lions’ World Cup exit.
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