Coleman suffers England World Cup heartbreak

This afternoon’s quarter-final fixture in Madrid headed into a penalty shoot-out following a 1-1 draw.

Waterlooville’s Brandon Coleman had levelled three minutes from time to deliver a lifeline to the Three Lions.

However, their leading scorer then missed the first of their designated three spot-kicks in the subsequent shoot-out.

England failed to register with any of their penalties as Argentina claimed victory with a spot-kick still remaining.

It was a harsh ending for Coleman, who claimed five goals in four matches during their progress.

They will now play Spain in a placing match, the hosts themselves knocked out by Russia earlier in the day.

England coach Jonathan Pugh said: ‘We are gutted to be honest.

‘On the balance of play in the second half, we absolutely dominated possession but just couldn’t get that goal early enough.

‘If we did I think we could have gone on to win the game.

‘It goes to penalties and Argentina have a history of winning penalty shoot-outs and we haven’t – and it showed. The quality of the penalties were better for them.

‘We now have Spain and it’s always going to be a hard game, they are a fantastic team and can think themselves unlucky not to be in the semi-final.

‘There are going to be two teams disappointed they are not further into the competition, so we are going to have to compete and see how high we can get.’

During the tournament, Coleman had netted twice in a 4-0 victory over Mali in the opening group match.

England then lost 3-0 to Brazil, before seeing off Costa Rica 7-1, with Coleman helping himself to another double.

It ensured they finished second in Group D, behind Brazil, lining-up in a clash with Argentina in today’s quarter-finals.

Yet an early Argentina goal left England chasing, before Coleman struck in the 37th minute.

His right-footed free-kick found the far bottom corner of the net to level the scores and steer the match towards penalties.

Coleman had hoped to catch the eye on the world stage and the 23-year-old certainly did that with five goals.

That presently puts the former Crookhorn School pupil among the leading scorers at the World Championships.

He has now scored 18 goals in 38 matches since his England debut in March 2016.