England's World Cup campaign ends in a heartbreak unlike those before as Gareth Southgate provides hope even without glory

“In hope, not expectation.”

As Gareth Southgate announced his England squad back in May, those words adorned the front page of The Independent’s sports section.

At that stage nobody would have believed these 23 players would ever arrive at the World Cup final. At that stage nobody would have expected anything from a young squad that looked more suited to 2022 than 2018.

At that stage, though, there was hope and that has never faded, instead it has grown and it has spread, manifesting itself in flying beer cups and 20-year-old pop songs and three French lions that few know the origin of. It has flooded a nation, infecting casual observers and lapsed aficionados alike. For the last four days it seemed to be not the National Grid that fuelled this country but hope, unfiltered and ethically-sourced.

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The hope, though, is not dead.

It remains and, if anything, it has been incubated by a tournament that not only recaptured the attention of generations but also made those normal people unlike us obsessives into football fans again.

The expectations were exceeded. Far exceeded.

In terms of tournament progression you could argue that England may only have gone one step beyond where they should have done and that, given their draw, that is a disappointment. But that is why we don't simply read about football in black and white or look at statistics and let our minds fill in the blanks. We watch these games and we follow these campaigns, these journeys, because they have so much more to them than that.

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To Croatia, a country of four million people, this is not merely a final it is everything. It is quite probably the most widely-recognised achievement for a young nation still wrestling with domestic issues, even if they lose to France on Sunday afternoon.

To England this won't go down as falling at the penultimate hurdle it will be the birth of a new generation, one that finally lanced the ghosts passed down by those generations before - golden, silver or bronze.

In a pre-tournament chat with The Independent, Gary Lineker said that this England team should "write off" this tournament with focus on Qatar.

“In four years’ time, England are going to be a serious force in international football. There’s no question about that, because we have all these youngsters who have been successful at Under-17, U19 and U20 level," he said.

“But at present, we haven’t got the world-class players that you need — and you need half your team to be world-class to be serious favourites in a competition like this.

“We may not have got that at the moment, but we will have it in four or six years from now."

There would be players that England fans might argue were 'world-class' but it was those who did not show when it mattered at the death against Croatia. Meanwhile Luka Modric, utterly legless after three back-to-back bouts of 120 minutes, continued to pick passes and keep England at arm's length.

It is a tough lesson to learn but no longer is it one of those lessons that must be learned with root-and-branch reviews or talk of starting over. It is a lesson that will be learned by a group of players that will grow together and improve for next time. Perhaps 2020, but certainly an eye on 2022.

Then there will be greater expectation but there is already greater hope.

Maybe in four years' time the National Grid can have the whole month off and hope can power us all, maybe 'It's On The Ball' by Ant & Dec will become the must-listen retro anthem but certainly, most certainly, Gareth Southgate's England will have a whole country behind them again for what feels like the first time in a long time.

Tomorrow there will be no need for public inquiries or caustic reviews or exhaustive post-mortems because English football is not dead, not by a long shot - in fact it hasn't been so alive in years.