[(Title)] England must make World Cup run the start of something big, not another false dawn

MOSCOW -- For England, this was so much better than anyone could have possibly expected. But in the end, it wasn't enough.

英格兰这次做得比任何人都想象中的要好得多，但究竟还是不够。

That's the problem with progress.

这就是进步的代价。

Croatia, in the end, were simply too good and too streetwise in the semifinal and their 2-1 victory was deserved, despite England's impressive start to the game.

克罗地亚在半决赛中表现优异，尽管英格兰队开始出局，他们2-1的胜利是应得的。

But defeat still stings for Gareth Southgate and his overachieving players.

但战败依然深深刺痛了加雷思·南门和他的优等球员。

"Did we feel we would be in this position?" Southgate asked after the game. "Realistically, I don't think any of us did.

“你问我，我们一开始料到自己会站在这里吗？”比赛结束后，索斯盖特答记者问，“现实点说，我们之前都没有料到。

"But when you get to this point and play as well as we did in the first half, you want to take those opportunities in life, so the dressing room is a very difficult place at the moment."

“但当我们真的来到了这里，踢得像我们上半场踢得那么好时，我们真的想抓住这次难能可贵的机会。”

England's shortcomings, the fault lines that have consumed them long before the semifinal stage in previous tournaments, remain the same as ever.

英格兰的缺点一直没有变，这次也一样——早在锦标赛半决赛阶段，他们就消耗了自己。

Southgate has done well to mask his team's flaws and give them a renewed sense of confidence and identity, but the problems that cost them against Croatia were the same that almost handed victory to Colombia in the round of 16.

索斯盖特已经很好地掩盖了他的球队的缺陷，使他们重新感到信心，但这依然无法改变他们输给克罗地亚的现实。

England don't have a Modric -- few teams do -- but they have to learn how to control games better against top-class teams.

英格兰队必须学会如何更好地控制比赛，对抗顶级球队。

"But we're not perfect, not the finished article, and there is a long way for us to go."

“但是我们的未来还没结束，接下来还有很长的路要走。我们现在的挑战是：让我们在俄罗斯2018年取得的进步成为伟大的开始，而不是又一个虚假的黎明。”

And that is now the challenge: to make the progress of Russia 2018 the start of something big, rather than another false dawn.