Harry Kane has said his failure to play to the best of his ability in the Champions League final was the most painful part of the defeat to Liverpool.
Spurs lost 2-0 to Liverpool in the Madrid final back in June. Kane started despite missing the end of the domestic season due to an ankle injury.
The striker struggled to make his mark on the game and Tottenham were accused of rushing him back from his lay-off too soon.
Regardless of whether Kane was fully fit or not, the 25-year-old failed to reach his best level of performance in the match.
Speaking ahead of the first game of Spurs’ pre-season tour in Asia, the England captain admitted he is still not over the loss.
“It was a tough one to take,” Kane said (via the Telegraph). “We did extremely well to reach the Champions League final and, of course, when you get to those big games and you don’t quite perform the way you know you can, that’s always the bit that hurts you the most.
“We know it was there for the taking and that’s something we have to deal with and something we’ve had to think about over the summer.
“It’s a hard one to get over but, all in all, with everything surrounding us, the start at Wembley, and things like that, I think we did extremely well.
“It’s now given us the confidence and belief that we can be in the big games, the Champions League finals, so it’s down to us this season to try and perform again.”
Lucas Moura, who scored a hat-trick in the semi-final against Ajax, was left on the bench against Liverpool to make room for Kane.
Despite Moura’s heroics, Kane was always likely to start in the final if he was available.
Kane and Tottenham will be desperate to reach another Champions League final this term to make things right.
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I believe Kane received the ball 11 times during the game and found one of his own players 9 times, not too shabby. My question would be where were our supposed creatives, because they did not create and certainly did not dig in at the back, whilst I think Liverpool’s best player was the referee, I can’t complain because of that lack of guts aforementioned.