AFTER 52 years of hurt, the World Cup seemed one step closer to coming to England when Kieran Trippier’s splendid free-kick put them ahead early on in their semi-final against Croatia.

England fans have been singing ‘It’s Coming Home’ all throughout this World Cup in Russia and the loudest rendition of their football anthem probably came here at the Luzhniki Stadium on Wednesday night when Trippier evoked memories of David Beckham just five minutes in.

Dele Alli was fouled by Croatian captain Luka Modric about 25 yards away, right in front of the goal. Up stepped Trippier and he found the perfection to hit the ball up over the wall and bring it down to raise the roof at the Luzhniki. England fans had gathered in huge numbers and their team had a flying first-half in which there were chances galore to put two or three more goals past Croatia.

They looked set to be on the way to the final, a first since 1966 when they won their sole world title. But then Croatia came back, and as it has been with England in the past, they imploded in the face of pressure. Their young team had already surpassed expectations by reaching the semis but their run here had now began inspiring belief that the long wait will finally end.

Gareth Southgate had only become England manager in 2016 after Sam Allardyce was fired just one game into his reign. But he managed to harness the players’ abilities in a collective and generated more than just hope.

The early goal against Croatia meant the game was now set up for England perfectly, the way Southgate wants his side to play. Blessed with the pace of Raheem Sterling and the trickery of Alli, England could now hit Croatia on the counter.

They did that several times and regretted their profligacy when Croatia finally got back into the game through Modric and Ivan Rakitic stepping up in midfield. Till then, Southgate’s ploy of using Alli and Jesse Lingard as central midfielders was working wonders, providing England with incisiveness on the break as Croatia struggled but after the break, it was a different story and the duo, along with Jordan Henderson were overrun in midfield. In the end, goals by Ivan Perisic and Mario Mandzukic put them out after extra-time. It’s not coming home for now and now four more years of hurt have been added.

Yet, with this young English squad, there is hope for the future. The Euro 2020 could be a realistic target.

“We just fell short at the second-to-last hurdle but as a team, we should be very proud of ourselves and for me, looking at the young squad, we should just feel positive about the future,” Gary Cahill, one of the veterans in this English squad, told reporters after the match. “And if, and it’s a big if, you can keep the squad progressing in the way I’ve seen in training over the last 50 or so days that we’ve been together, it’s only a matter of time before they get their hands on some silverware.”

Talk about the future was a recurring theme in the mixed zone after the match. “There will come a time when we can look back and see the good that has come from this,” said midfielder Eric Dier. “We want to be back here, playing games like this and even bigger ones. And I think we will. We have to learn from this, take the positives, learn from the negatives and come back. I think this squad is very young and the base of the squad is the base of England for many years to come. We believe we can get better.”

Key to England’s chances of progressing past Croatia was captain and star striker Harry Kane but he didn’t make much of an influence. He remains the tournament’s highest goal-scorer so far with six goals but crucially he also didn’t get onto the scoresheet against Sweden in the quarter-final.

“We have fallen a bit short,” said Kane. “But it shows we can be up here. We can win knockout games and we can get to the semi-finals but the next step is to go one further. We have to carry that on. We want more.”

To get more, however, England need a midfielder who can control a game. On Wednesday, they had Jordan Hender­son to do that. He admitted afterwards that there was a lack of control.

“We are disappointed but we can look back on the tournament with our heads held high,” he said. “In the first half, we had lots of chances to win but in the second half Croatia had a period where we were on the back foot and they created lot of chances after the goal. I felt we’d weathered the storm but the second goal killed us.”

Southgate has a contract up to Euro 2020 and he was optimistic for England’s future.

“I don’t think realistically we expected to be here,” he said at the post-match press conference. “But once you’re here, and played as well as we did, you want to take those opportunities in life. However, there will 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.”

Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2018