As soon as England captain Harry Kane buried his face in his hands and slumped to the Al Bayt turf in tears at the final whistle, some of his teammates were seen gesturing towards the cameras to focus away. They probably didn’t want an English generation to see their star captain distraught, having missed a penalty during their 1-2 defeat in the quarter-final to world champions France. 

Tchouameni’s stunner

After Aurelien Tchouameni’s (17th minute) stunning long-range effort had given France a first-half lead, England fought back in the second session, and were rightly awarded a penalty (52nd minute) after VAR’s intervention. Kane, a three-time Golden Boot winner at the English Premier League, stepped up and cleanly beat France’s goalkeeper and captain Hugo Lloris with a powerful shot into the left corner to equal compatriot Wayne Rooney’s record of 53 goals for England. The goal also  equalled Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo’s World Cup tally of eight goals. Kane had a fine match thereafter, as coach Gareth Southgate later admitted, “Harry was holding play and playing link-up really well.” However, it was France, who went ahead when Olivier Giroud (78th min) nodded home for 2-1. England kept pressing though, and got a second penalty in the 84th minute when once again a VAR intervention was sought. This time though, Kane, attempting to become England’s highest all-time scorer, missed. He ballooned it over the crossbar with a bit of an angle towards the left, the same side he had attempted his first penalty.