England captain Harry Kane said that the Three Lions produced some of their best football for a long time despite losing 3-2 at home to world champions Spain in the Nations League on Friday.
Thomas Tuchel's men got off to a disastrous start when Marc Guehi gifted Lamine Yamal the opening goal at Wembley.
But England roared back to lead before half-time thanks to a brilliant counter-attack finished off by Anthony Gordon and Kane's header.
Kane then hit the bar with a second half penalty that would have made it 3-1 before Spain roared back to extend their unbeaten run to 39 games through Alex Baena and Mikel Oyarzabal.
It was a familiar tale of what could have been for England, who have reached the semi-finals in four of their last five major tournaments without ending their wait since 1966 to win one.
"We reached good levels in the World Cup, but didn't quite put a full 90 minutes together. Probably similar again today," Kane told ITV.
"We had a lot of good moments, so I think that period (either side of half-time) was as good as we've played in a long, long time and that's the standard that we know we can reach.
"We're playing against the reigning world champions, European champions. We went toe-to-toe and on another day, for sure, we would win that game."
Tuchel was left to bemoan the two defensive errors that cost his side victory.
Nico O'Riley followed Manchester City team-mate Guehi into gifting possession away deep inside England's half in the build up to Baena's equaliser.
"On that level, the details matter. It matters that you take your chances and it matters that you reduce the decisive mistakes. Both was not in our favour today," said Tuchel.
"The effort was there, the quality was there, spells of the game were very, very good, but the result isn't perfect today."