Harry Kane admits England had 'tired mentality' after Three Lions punished by Spain in dying embers of Euro 2024 final

The Three Lions battled their way back into a Berlin showpiece when Cole Palmer stepped off the bench to cancel out Nico Williams’ opening goal. Gareth Southgate’s side were unable to gain any kind of control in proceedings, though, and saw Spain’s dominance of possession deliver a dramatic winner for Mikel Oyarzabal in the 86th minute.

Kane was on the bench by that point, having been replaced once again, and told BBC Sport afterwards in his role as England captain: “We just didn’t quite keep the same intensity and pressure (after scoring) or keep the ball well enough. It is the last stage of the tournament, there is a lot of tired legs and tired mentality there. We just struggled and then got caught with the ball in behind. It is down to big moments — we had a big moment at the end where they cleared one off the line, it could have been different, but for now it is really disappointing.”

Declan Rice saw a late header parried away, before Marc Guehi’s follow-up was nodded off the line by Dani Olmo. England have now suffered defeat in back-to-back European Championship finals, with Kane adding: “It’s an opportunity missed. It’s not easy to get to these finals. It takes unbelievable resilience and character to get to where we are but ultimately you take the opportunity when it comes and we haven’t done it again. It’s extremely painful, it’s going to hurt for a long, long time. It’s disappointing that we couldn’t win it for Gareth. We wanted so badly to win it for him.”

Kane was desperate to get over the line himself, with the prolific Bayern Munich striker seeing his much-publicised wait for major silverware continue. He will have returned to action at club level by the time that England take to the field again, in a Nations League clash with the Republic of Ireland on September 7.