Soccer
How England wasted their Harry Kane opportunity in another World Cup capitulation
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England fans are waking up to that morning after the night before feeling after yet another tournament disappointment at the 2026 World Cup.
This time it hurts a tad more than most, with the Three Lions missing out on a first World Cup final since 1966 with defeat to Argentina in Atalanta.
Fingers will be quite rightly pointed in Thomas Tuchel's direction, whose negative approach at 1-0 up saw his side surrender their foothold in the game and ultimately crack under the pressure of Lionel Messi and this relentless Argentine side.
Yet, as the dust settles, perhaps the most deflating and frustrating thing is how England wasted who they had leading the charge.
In Harry Kane, they had a captain and forward in the form of his life. In fact, it’s not hyperbole to say that never before has England’s key player been in such good form going into a major tournament. But, once again, it was a wasted opportunity and one the national team may never get again.
A Ballon d’Or season
Modern football is obsessed with ‘underlying numbers’ and often, a player’s performance is so much more than a series of analysed data. However, with Kane it’s hard not to look at the ridiculous tallies he’s chalked up this year.
The forward went into the 2026 World Cup having scored 61 goals for Bayern Munich in a season where he’d helped the German giants win a league and cup double.
But it wasn’t just his goalscoring either. His all-round play had turned him into a complete forward, underlined by his 8 assists and his leading the way in shots on goal and average goals per minute.
It had been a season in which many had tipped the England captain to be in the running for the Ballon d’Or. A claim only heightened by his international performances, too, where in total he's scored 72 goals for club and country since the start of last season.
@LigadeCampeones
A quick look back at previous England tournaments pre-Kane being the main man, and you'd struggle to find any player who was carrying the form and momentum that the 32-year-old was heading to North America.
From 2010 to 2016, Wayne Rooney was considered England’s trump card, but across four tournaments, their talisman came into proceedings undercooked.
Whether that was due to an unfortunate injury or suspension, part of the myth of Rooney’s international career is his performances in major finals outside of Euro 2004. He never came in like Kane and failed to perform at the same level.
The star players fared slightly better in the era before that, with Michael Owen and Alan Shearer coming into 2002 and 1998 after impressive club campaigns. But even then, not in the same league as Kane in 2026.
World Cup proof
Then, once the World Cup began Stateside, our form player hadn’t run out of steam nor failed to live up to the hype – he simply carried on.
Two goals against Croatia got him and England off to the perfect start, before a crucial goal against Panama and then his almost one-man salvo against DR Congo that got the Three Lions out of jail. Something we’ve seldom seen from the talisman in the pack until Harry Edward Kane.
@England
Again in Mexico, it was Kane’s nerves of steel that were the difference in the 3-2 win, and, yes, he may have been quieter against Norway and limited in last night’s defeat – despite some delightful cross-field balls to open up the game – but without Kane, England would already be at home nursing an even bigger hangover.
However, thanks to Tuchel’s disastrous decisions in the last 30 minutes, England won’t be taking football’s most in-form striker to a World Cup final and allowing him to complete a perfect season. And instead, fans are back ruing another glaring opportunity that has gone up in smoke.
Now it’s hard to see if we’ll ever have that opportunity again of having the luxury of one of the best players in the world to spearhead a World Cup campaign, when the Three Lions were just one game from glory and a game in which Kane would be the perfect man to find that moment to exact revenge on the Spanish.
The future
The even worse news is that it is doubtful Kane will see another World Cup. He refused to be drawn on that question in the aftermath of the defeat, but he’ll turn 37 by the time 2030 rolls around, and it’s hard to see him still as England’s focal point in four years' time.
Which means Euro 2028 may well be Kane's last innings. A tournament on home soil, to finally win something for this country – but even that is two years away. Can he keep up this level of form for another two seasons?
What’s even more concerning is the dearth of any potential successors. When you think about the ‘passing of the torch’, England have gone from Lineker to Shearer to Owen to Rooney and then to Kane. The problem now is that the torch is out of charge, and there is literally no one waiting in line.
For all the talk of the potential of Max Dowman or Rio Ngumoha, amazing prospects as forwards – there are no number nines. No archetypal goalscorers.
There's plenty of talent in England's youth ranks, but there's a large majority of the same type of 'number 10' or 'wide forward'. The well is pretty much as dry as it's ever been when it comes to strikers.
Even the current crop of understudies are exactly that. They are good enough to be backups, but nowhere near the level of Kane. That's why last season there was so much talk of Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Danny Welbeck being involved, because there is no future for England's number nine position, so we're having to look to the past.
Unfortunately, a future without Kane is fast approaching and having wasted England's greatest-ever striker for another tournament, we may only get one more shot before things get very, very bleak without him.
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