Harry Kane admitted he is 'heartbroken' after England's Euro 2024 agony with the Three Lions captain breaking his silence in a lengthy social media message.
Gareth Southgate's side lost their second successive European Championship final on Sunday with the 2-1 defeat by Spain extending their trophy drought to 60 years.
Kane was taken off on the hour mark at the end of a tournament in which he was criticised for several ineffectual displays and looked dejected at the final whistle.
But in a 84-word post on Instagram directed at supporters, the captain vowed to keep fighting and voiced his pride with his side's achievements over the past month.
'Heartbroken we couldn't achieve what we worked so hard to,' he wrote.
'It was a long tough tournament and I'm so proud of the boys and staff for getting to the final. Ultimately we fell short of our target and will have to live with that.
'But as we always do we will pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and be ready to fight again in an England shirt.
'Thank you to all the fans that believed in us and supported us to the very end!'
Kane, who was replaced by Ollie Watkins with England chasing a goal in Berlin, is the first Three Lions player to respond to their agony the following morning.
Team-mate Luke Shaw responded to the post with a red heart emoji.
Despite finding the net three times, the 30-year-old was unable to repeat the heroics that lit up his first campaign at Bayern Munich, leading to suggestions from several pundits that he had carried a mystery injury into the summer.
The struggling frontman was quick to dismiss the rumours, however.
'No, it's time to talk about personal things,' Kane told BBC Five Live.
'The tournament plays out in different situations. You deal with a lot as a player throughout these tournaments.
'Everyone is dealing with issues and you're at your maximum physical capabilities and it was just the way the game panned out and the way the tournament's gone.
'Of course, from a personal point of view I would have loved to have played better tonight and it would've been a different outcome but unfortunately it wasn't.'
But Gary Lineker has claimed that Kane 'was not himself' throughout the competition and sensationally suggested he could step away from international football.
'Part of [looking to] the future in my mind was what England do, what does Harry Kane do? He was not himself in this tournament,' Lineker said on The Rest Is Football.
'He's in his 30s now, Micah [Richards]. When I was 30, 31, my legs started to go.
'I retired from international football at 32. At 31 that was happening [legs going] and it's horrible, it's horrible.'
