England impressed, excited but ultimately fell short in the World Cup opener against Italy, leading Gary Cahill to bemoan a "cruel" defeat in the rainforest.
Things looked promising from the outset in the heat and humidity of Manaus, only for defensive frailties to eventually prove their undoing at the Arena Amazonia.
Claudio Marchisio and Mario Balotelli scored the decisive goals as the Azzurri won 2-1, with Daniel Sturridge's close-range effort all England had to show for their 18 shots.
The result sets up a must-win clash against Uruguay, who lost their Group D opener to unfancied Costa Rica, and centre-back Cahill will be trying to remain upbeat in the build-up to Thursday's encounter in Sao Paulo.
"We can take a lot of positives from that," the Chelsea man said. "I thought we played well.
"We started the way we wanted to start. We knew they had players who wanted to get on the ball.
"They have some very good players but we started the game really brightly, did well and there wasn't too much we did wrong. Unfortunately we were on the losing team but two good teams went at it.
"We had more joy second half. We had more possession, we were well in the game and I thought they found it difficult in the second half.
"We had a feeling out there that if we'd scored we could have gone on. We didn't. Sometimes it's cruel."
Source: PA
