FABIAN Delph fears England's players will rue their failure to reach the World Cup final for the rest of their lives.

Gareth Southgate's Three Lions surrendered a semi-final lead to lose 2-1 to Croatia in midweek before suffering a 2-0 defeat to Belgium in Saturday's third-place play-off after goals from Thomas Meunier and Eden Hazard.

Bradford-born midfielder Delph believes the national team's display in Russia offers plenty of hope for the future but expects regret and disappointment to linger.

"Not just in the near future, I think for the rest of our lives we'll be kicking ourselves saying we had a real opportunity," the Manchester City player said.

"The semi-final, I think we had a great chance to reach the final but we came up short.

"It's knockout football, it just takes one performance, some freak things that happen, but fair play to Croatia they came and did well, they were relentless for the majority of the game and they got the win so I wish them all the best.

"But we've made massive changes, we've had a fantastic camp, and I think we've got something to build from for the next four years."

Fellow midfielder Ruben Loftus-Cheek also thinks England have plenty to build on.

"We can all be proud of ourselves. This squad's so young, so much potential in it and I think the whole team and organisation are really looking forward to what's in the future," said Loftus-Cheek.

"Even though the last two games have been a bit disappointing, we go back and have a little bit of a party and celebrate what we've achieved."

Southgate believes England overachieved at the World Cup and are "nowhere near" their peak.

He said: "We are competitive in every game. We've overcome a lot of landmarks that we needed to.

"To finish in the top four is probably above where we are currently.

"Huge credit to the players because they deserve every bit of praise that they get when they go back.

"You look at the number of caps the Belgium players have and at the age of the squad; they're at their peak, this was really their big tournament.

"We're nowhere near our peak yet, we've know that right the way through."

England were second best for most of Saturday's game and fell behind inside four minutes when wing-back Meunier tapped home.

Eric Dier had a dinked effort cleared off the line by Tottenham team-mate Toby Alderweireld in the second half, before Hazard sealed Belgium's win late on.

Southgate admitted the better team won and believes Belgium may still have regrets over their semi-final loss to France.

"I think they're a better side than us. The reality is we've had a day less to prepare and recover and I think it was just a game too far for us," he added.

"They are a top team and great credit to them, they'll probably be thinking they should have gone further than they did.

"From my point of view, our players have given absolutely everything right the way to the final whistle."

England captain Harry Kane failed to score for the third successive game but remains on course to win the golden boot having hit six goals earlier in the tournament.

The Tottenham striker challenged his team-mates to repeat their form in future competitions.

"The lads couldn't have given any more, it's been a tough tournament, Belgium are obviously a good team," said the 24-year-old.

"We've closed it (the gap to the top teams) but today shows there's still room for improvement. We're not the finished article yet, we're still learning, we're still getting better. This is the level we've got to try and stay at now."

Belgium's victory means they recorded their best finish at a World Cup, bettering fourth place at Mexico '86.

Red Devils coach Roberto Martinez said his talented group of individuals had proved they could play as an effective team.

"It's all about that achievement (finishing third), these players deserve that," said the Spaniard.

"There's a lot of talk about a group of players with talent takes you somewhere, I think what we've seen in this World Cup is these players didn't want to rely on the talent any more, they wanted to rely on working as a team.

"They wanted to make the country proud and wanted to make every single Belgian Red Devil fan extremely proud, and that goes for them."