Gareth Southgate shouldered the blame for England's Euro 2020 final penalty shoot-out loss to Italy and told his young side to hold their heads high after a historic summer came to a crushing end.
Football is going to Rome rather than coming home after the Three Lions fell agonisingly short of replicating the World Cup triumph of 1966 at a rocking Wembley.
Luke Shaw fired England into a dream lead inside 117 seconds but Roberto Mancini's men grew into Sunday's final, with Leonardo Bonucci levelling to take the match to extra-time.
"Tonight's hard, of course, because to get so close... you know those opportunities in your life are incredibly rare but a credit to Italy. I think they've been outstanding the whole tournament.
"The way they used the ball tonight was a little bit better than us and I think they were strong enough in defence to stop us really creating anything consistently on their goal."
Southgate repeatedly stressed none of the players are on their own and took the blame, promising to look after "super boy" Saka after the teenager's saved penalty wrapped up Italy's win.
The former defender believes the players should see this tournament as a success having reached their first ever European Championship final, three years on from getting to the World Cup semi-finals.
"Well, look, I think we built strong bonds in Russia and I think that's continued through this tournament so I don't know of course," Southgate said.
"Tonight the balloon is burst isn't it and the feeling around the country will be very empty I know.
"That's hard for everybody to take. We wanted to give everybody one more night that would continue the biggest party ever.
"We haven't been able to do that so. But I hope that we've given everybody some incredible memories and the players especially should feel very proud of what they've done."
