Southgate: England dressing room 'a difficult place' after defeat

England manager Gareth Southgate said the dressing room was "a difficult place at the moment" after his side went out to Croatia in extra-time in the World Cup semi-finals on Wednesday.
England could not hold on to a fifth-minute lead following a Kieran Trippier free-kick, and instead of playing France in Sunday's final in Moscow will now come up against Belgium on Saturday in St Petersburg in the match for third place.
"At the moment we all feel the pain of defeat," Southgate said. "I don't think realistically we expected to be here. But once you're here and played as well as we did, you want to take those opportunities in life. The dressing room is a difficult place at the moment."
Southgate saw his side concede Ivan Perisic's 68th-minute equalizer before Mario Mandzukic's extra-time winner in the 109th minute left England in despair. "I'm remarkable proud of the group of players - the reaction of the supporters compared to two years ago shows the country are proud of the way we played," Southgate said.
"There will in time be lots of positives to take but it's too hard and too soon to put that in context. You have to suffer the result first sometimes. "I'm hugely proud of what we've done. I couldn't have asked for any more. They've broken through a number of barriers in the past weeks."
Of the match for third place against Belgium, Southgate said: "It's not a game any team wants to play in. We have two days to prepare. We will want to give a performance of huge pride. "Every time we wear the shirt we want to play well and win. It's going to be a really difficult task. Over the next 24 hours we have to get everyone back mentally to where we want them.
That's the challenge." Goalkeeper Jordan Pickford told ITV: "Maybe we went ahead to early. But we needed that next goal to kill off the tie. "We had some good chances, but didn't put them away. They have some top-quality players, which showed in the second half. Maybe it was a high kick on Kyle Walker (by Perisic) for their first goal? But you can't look back, we showed pride and passion."