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The final whistle at MetLife Stadium confirmed the cruellest of outcomes: England 1, Argentina 2, and a World Cup semi-final surrendered in the last quarter of an hour. Anthony Gordon’s early strike had given Thomas Tuchel’s side the lead, Harry Kane levelled from the penalty spot after Julian Alvarez restored parity, but Lionel Messi’s incisive pass to set up the winner settled a contest England had, for long stretches, controlled. It is three tournaments now without a trophy — the Euro 2020 final, the 2022 quarter-final, and this. Yet to reduce England to a story of near-misses is to misread where this team stands. Here are five reasons for supporters to look forward rather than back.
A team built to last
The most persuasive argument for optimism is arithmetic. England reached the last four of a World Cup with a squad whose spine is nowhere near its peak. Jude Bellingham is 22. Cole Palmer, who dictated tempo in midfield and drew three fouls in dangerous areas against Argentina, is 24. Bukayo Saka, Levi Colwill and Anthony Gordon are all comfortably the right side of 27. Barring injury, the core of this side is available not only for Euro 2028 but for the 2030 World Cup beyond it.
Contrast that with Argentina, whose triumph leaned once more on the 38-year-old Messi. Lionel Scaloni’s champions are a team saying a long goodbye to their greatest player; England are a team whose best footballer has yet to reach his prime. When Gareth Southgate inherited England in 2016, the talent pool was thin and the tactical culture cautious. That inheritance has been transformed.
- Five of England’s starting XI in the semi-final were 24 or younger.
- Bellingham, Saka and Palmer have a combined 150-plus caps before turning 25.
- The Under-21s won the European Championship in 2023, feeding the senior pipeline.
Tuchel has changed how England play
The second reason concerns identity. For much of the previous decade England were accused of tournament conservatism — reaching latter stages by controlling risk rather than imposing themselves. Tuchel’s semi-final selection told a different story. England pressed Argentina high, committed full-backs forward, and manufactured the game’s clearest first-half chances. Gordon’s goal was the product of a deliberate, rehearsed press that turned an Argentine defender in his own third.
That England ultimately lost owes more to Argentina’s ruthlessness in transition than to any timidity. The third reason follows from the second: this was not a defeat born of fear. England lost a heavyweight contest to the reigning world champions on the finest of margins, having gone toe-to-toe rather than sitting deep and hoping. A generation ago, that alone would have counted as progress. Now it is the baseline expectation — and meeting it is itself a marker of how far the programme has travelled.
The margins are closing, not widening
The fourth reason is competitive trajectory. England have now lost to Italy (on penalties), France (by a single goal, with a missed spot-kick) and Argentina (by one) in successive knockout exits. Painful as the pattern is, each defeat has come against a side ranked among the world’s elite, and each has been decided by the narrowest of details rather than a gulf in quality. Teams do not stumble to three consecutive last-eight-or-better finishes by accident; consistency at this altitude is the hardest thing in international football to sustain, and England have sustained it.
The fifth reason is Kane himself. At 31 he remains England’s talisman and, at MetLife, showed no sign of decline, converting under maximum pressure and leading the line with intelligence. He is unlikely to see 2030, but Euro 2028 — hosted in part on home soil — arrives at the perfect moment for a captain chasing the medal his career deserves. Around him, the succession is already visible.
None of this softens the immediate sting. Semi-final defeats are measured in decades of what-might-have-been, and England’s players walked from the pitch in New Jersey knowing a genuine chance had slipped. But the wider picture is unambiguous. This is a young, ambitious, tactically modern side that lost a coin-flip against the best team in the world. The trophy did not come. On the evidence of this tournament, the conditions for winning one are closer than they have been in sixty years.
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Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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