The golden period has got to have been between 1977 and 1984. England had the best players in club football during that period. They didn't win a Euro or a World Cup during that era. This was before foreign players ruining the national side too. Surely that has to be the worst failure?
England were robbed in 1982 - beating the legendary French side of Platini and Tigana 3-1 qualifying top of their group but still ending up in a second round group including Spain and Germany while France got Austria and N Ireland. England drew with Spain and Germany and went out undefeated only conceding 1 goal. The Italy and Brazil sides were great but I think England could have won that World Cup - robbed by the stupid FIFA system.
We lost 2018 because no one picked up Modric. Southgate just had to tell one of our lads to constantly stay on his heels and we'd win it. Unfortunately it didn't happen and we ended up losing in ET. My opinion of course Edit - this is the reason it doesn't hurt as much. Our own faults. Sometimes we lose out to cheating/conning the ref, no luck, etc etc. Our own faults in 2018 though so doesn't come as keen
1990 was the worst. I was watching the Rolling Stones at Wembley that night. People were putting up the score from the old press box. When England equalised. Huge cheer went up & Jagger thought it was for him & went high camp. Story was, Ronnie Wood had a tv slightly off stage.. I had set the video & still watched it when I got home..
I sort of agree. I don't class 86 as a near miss and left it off my list because we were outplayed by Argentina in that game. On your other point we are masters of our own downfall. 90 and 98 on penalties. Couldn't be beaten in regulation time. Same in 2006 v Portugal. Not many teams actually beat us so in a way being beaten in normal time regardless of what transpired during the 90 mins invariably means the best team won. I can say that about last Saturday. For all the substitutions and tactics I think we lost to a better side.
It did me.. Lass at the time insisted on watching full 2 hour plus match. Getting well excited, despite knowing the result. Even though she was working next day. I wasn’t, happily getting £300 a week for playing guitar when I was told.
Well, not really. Northern Ireland finished top of their group, so we had Spain in our second round group cos they finished runners-up. Spain weren’t really a force that year. Northern Ireland beat them and Honduras held them to a draw. West Germany lost to Algeria and needed the dodgy 1-0 win over Austria to get through the first round. We would have comfortably topped the second round group were it not for Keegan and Brooking being injured. We only got half an hour out of each of them all tournament. A fully fit Keegan would have buried that header. It’s not the last time a key injury cost us. It would have been interesting to see how we’d have fared in the next two World Cups were it not for Bryan Robson getting injured early on each time. But back to the 2nd round, Italy had Argentina and the brilliant Brazil team in their second round group, only having crept through their winless first round group above Cameroon on goals scored. I know which of the two second round options I’d rather have had. Brazil 82 is rightly seen as one of the best teams not to have won the World Cup. They didn’t even make the semis. What was bizarre is that had we got through the second round we’d have played France again in the semi-final. Indeed, Italy played Poland for the second time in the other one. It’s still my favourite World Cup though. It had everything, including attempted murder in one of the semi-finals!
We had the best players in the English league but I beg to differ that they were the best in international club football,....even though English teams were winning European cups in that period the teams contained a lot of top quality Scottish players i.e. Liverpool........Brazil, Italy had some top players back then
1990 is iconic but look at the facts. Scrapped through a group then poor Belgium’s then poor Cameron compared to who we could have faced. Like 2022 and others like 2002 and 2016 and so on, once we hit a big team BANG.
That really doesn't tell the whole story though. We topped a very tough group, which contained an extremely solid Republic of Ireland side and the Dutch, who were reigning European Champions. We completely outplayed them and were unlucky not to beat them. We beat Egypt 1-0, something that no other team managed. We certainly rode our luck against Belgium at times, but to say that they were poor is just not true. Scifo, Clijsters, Ceulemans, Degryse, De Wolf, Vervoot, Gerets were all world class players. Cameroon were also a very tough side as their previous results had proved. You don't beat Argentina and Colombia if you're rubbish. Objectively you're correct in saying that we lost to Germany, as the history books show. But we lost on penalties and were the better side for most of the game. Hardly a case of "BANG".
Cameroon weren't a poor side, they won their group beating Argentina (finishing the game with only 9 men) and Romania, they lost the final group stage game but had already qualified... beat Colombia in the first KO game... and according to Lineker in those late night chats with Shearer and Micah Richards last week... England were told by their scout that it was a virtual bye... in reality they battered us and we were lucky to win... with 2 penalties helping.
England had beaten Northern Ireland 4-0 already that year, Germany were the world champions and Spain the hosts, so England got no advantage topping the group - indeed I don’t think the second round was seeded. But with a fit Keegan I think we’d have won it.
