​ATLANTA — In the end, it always end the same for England at a major tournament: regrets, what ifs and a devastating defeat.What if England had just gone for it when they went 1-0 up against Argentina with 35 minutes to go and had a first World Cup final appearance in 60 years within reach?AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWhat if Thomas Tuchel stuck with his plan instead of switching to a back five?What if he bought on attacking players to try and pin back surging Argentina?What if England hadn’t retreated to the edge of their own box and had just 12 percent possession after they went ahead?What if England’s players had figured out Lionel Messi had drifted out to the right wing to cause maximum chaos and stopped him?What if. What if. What if.In the end it’s always the same for England.Just like the 2018 World Cup semifinal defeat to Croatia and the European Championship final defeat to Italy in 2021, they will have massive regrets about how they folded when they were on top.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement”It’s a similar story to what has happened in previous tournaments. We’ve struggled to keep the momentum of the game,” a dejected England captain Harry Kane told reporters afterwards, just moments after he had stood staring at England’s devastated fans in the stands.”We did so well for 60 minutes. We scored, deserved to be ahead, then for one reason or another we struggled to keep the ball, struggled to put pressure on the ball and it allowed them to create more momentum, it created more attacks for them in our final third. It’s the normal mindset to try and hang on to a one-goal lead. But it was still 20 minutes plus stoppage time to go, so it was always going to be a long time. We are going to have to watch the game back and see exactly how we can improve in those situations. It has been the missing piece now for the last four or five tournaments.”Why did this all feel so similar to those other recent defeats in the biggest moment when it mattered most? What is that missing piece Kane is referring to?”Tough question for me to answer right now,” England’s Dan Burn told Pro Soccer Talk afterwards. “I think the difference is that Argentina have been there, done that and had the confidence that they were going to do it. I genuinely thought that we were going to do it the whole time. Even when I entered the pitch I was confident that we could do it. But I think when you get at this level of football there are very fine margins. I know it’s easy to say but it is fine margins. They took two chances and scored.”AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAll in all, England simply didn’t grasp the moment when it was there for them.Belief grew among the fans throughout this tournament. Pretty much every fan I met in Boston, New York, Miami and Atlanta believed this was England’s time. It wasn’t. Again.Before this tournament started many believed they would reach the semifinals and they did. They basically matched expectation levels, bu