IT WAS 10 JULY 1994, New Jersey pretending to be New York. There were fifteen minutes left on another painfully humid day. When I think of the moment of silence coursing around Giants Stadium after Stoichkov’s free-kick hit the back of the net, the hairs on my neck still rise. And when I remember that I have never enjoyed a similar moment watching England, they fall again.
Four years before Bulgaria’s captain put them on the way to beating Germany at USA ’94, Italia ’90 should have been my first World Cup. I had motive, means and opportunity, even the language (courtesy of a Paolo Rossi inspired A-Level choice). But as I tried to find a way into journalism at When Saturday Comes, staying in London represented a chance to prove my worth beyond tea-making and packing T-shirts.
Somewhere along the line it paid off and four years later I went to the World Cup for WSC, even though Graham Taylor’s England didn’t make it. We watched two quarter-finals. In the first, consistent challengers and 1982 winners Italy beat perennially unlucky Spain in Massachusetts; and then we drove south to watch Bulgaria, who had never won a match in five final tournaments until their group successes against Greece and a Maradona-deprived Argentina, play the defending champions, Germany.
Just after half-time, Lothar Matthaus put Germany on course to face Italy for a place in the final, scoring from the penalty spot — just as he had done for West Germany in the Italia ’90 quarter-final, and in the Turin shootout with England. At Giants Stadium Matthaus, Jurgen Klinsmann and co did not add to their tally but few thought they would need to. This was Bulgaria; Bulgaria do not reach World Cup semi-finals. And then, with fifteen minutes left, there was a foul twenty-five yards out, to the right of the D as Bulgaria attacked.
Hristo Stoichkov had three goals already in the Finals but had taken countless free-kicks without scoring from one. Yet here he was, pointlessly lining another effort up against the champions. No one knew exactly what would happen — would it smack into the wall, or would it sail harmlessly over? But we all knew what wouldn’t happen — Bodo Illgner would not be picking the ball out of his net.
Watching it again on YouTube, the split second of silence is drowned out by the commentary. But it was there. It is impossible to know what Stoichkov himself was thinking, whether he truly thought he would score. Did he, too, have to erase his disbelief? Perhaps the Germans were equally bewildered as just three minutes later Yordan Lechkov’s diving header gave the underdogs a lead to cling to. And they clung. At the whistle crowds of Americans, their faces painted in the colours of the match favourites, were celebrating the underdogs’ success; such was the fickle nature of Soccer USA. And who cared, as long as they didn’t beat me in the rush to buy a souvenir Bulgaria T-shirt?
Stoichkov’s side were not the only unexpected semi-finalists. Four days later on the west coast, I saw Sweden lose narrowly to the eventual winners, Brazil, opponents they had previously held to a draw in the group stage.
Italy, Brazil, Sweden, Bulgaria: the first quartet of sides to match the achievement of Bobby Robson’s men four years earlier. Maybe England’s turn would come in 1998.
At least, buoyed by the almost-glory of Euro ’96, they qualified for France; but on a memorable night against Argentina in Saint-Etienne, David Beckham lost his head and his remaining team-mates lost England’s second World Cup shootout, this time in the last sixteen. Sven-Goran Eriksson went one round better than Glenn Hoddle in both 2002 and 2006, narrowly losing quarter-finals, for which the Swede was widely excoriated while being chased out of the job two years early. But after the disastrous reign of Steve McClaren ended in failure to reach Euro 2008, Fabio Capello’s side slipped back to be overrun in the last sixteen of the 2010 World Cup and Roy Hodgson could not even get that far in 2014, with England’s first World Cup group-stage exit since 1958.
Quarter-finals, last sixteen, first round with a match to spare. The longer England go without another World Cup semi-final, the further short they fall, the less likely they look to reach one, the more my Italia ’90 regret grows.
At one level, we remain members of a select bunch. Spain, in 2010, became the eighth and most recent different nation to win the World Cup (if we rightly award reunified Germany, 2014 winners, the trio won by West Germany). But now only a dwindling number of people at home and abroad can actually remember England winning ours. Eriksson’s era of quarter-finals (including one at Euro 2004) looks a poor return for an allegedly golden generation, but one quarter-final at global or European level since is product of a far baser metal.
Past failure is not actually a guarantee of future poor performance; otherwise all but a handful would give up playing any team sport at all. It can, though, offer a guide, a dose of realism in a world where hope too often gets the better of you.
The question needs asking, therefore: just how bad are England, not in any given moment but over time? Too many of the matches have made painful viewing; some bare statistics add to the grief but also give it a rational grounding. Since 1990, our post-’66 high point, fourteen different nations have reached the World Cup semi-finals at least once. Add in the five World Cups between our victory and our only other semi, and the number who can also boast at least one last-four spot rises to sixteen.
We could make ourselves more miserable by including European Championships, despite Terry Venables’ shootout defeat when football so nearly came home. In our fifty years, Czechoslovakia won one Euro and, though there was a sizable Slovakian contingent in 1976, twenty years later the Czech Republic reached the final of Euro ’96. Denmark (1992) and Greece (2004) recorded deeply improbable continental victories, too. The USSR lost finals to the 1972 West Germany and to Marco van Basten’s Holland in 1988 (after both had beaten England in the group stages). Portugal’s loss to Greece at home in the 2004 final must ache, yet we do not even have runners-up medals to throw away in disgust.
But, sticking to the World Cup, let’s try to answer as objectively as possible, by going tournament by painful tournament, where England have stood since Bobby Moore lifted those twelve inches of not actually solid gold.
There are some immediate difficulties in comparing achievements at different World Cups: the number of finalists has doubled from the sixteen of 1970–78 to the thirty-two since 1998, with twenty-four for the four finals from 1982 to 1994. While 1970 had quarter-finals and semis, a second group stage in 1974 and 1978 meant that there was only one actual knockout match — the final — plus the third-fourth play-off. Spain ’82 still had two group stages but with four groups of three producing semi-finalists. Getting out of an initial group meant being in the last eight up to 1978, the last twelve in 1982 and the last sixteen from 1986 onwards.
Immediately objectivity is undermined, then, unless you award points only to the last four, and to do so would be to ignore some considerable achievements and deprive the continent of Africa of any place in our final table. It would also give too much credit to one particular host nation who in eight other attempts have only once escaped their group, but went all the way to the semis in 2002 with the aid of some generous refereeing. Meanwhile — though I watched Sweden put four past Bulgaria in the 1994 game — no weight can generally be given to the third-fourth match, contested between sides with greatly varying degrees of interest. Semi-finalists should be treated equally. But a scale of 2pts for quarter-finalists, 4pts for semi-finalists, 7pts for runners-up and 13pts for the winners offers sufficient gradation and allows room for a couple of tweaks.
Home advantage hasn’t been penalised. In our fifty-year period of twelve World Cups hosts have only won in 1974 (West Germany), 1978 (Argentina) and 1998 (France); and if they didn’t make it that far, they were losing semi-finalists in 1990 (Italy), 2002 (South Korea), 2006 (Germany) and 2014 (Brazil). But given the World Cup’s overall history some allowance should be given to teams competing outside their own hemisphere — after all, in 2014 Germany became the first European team to win in the Americas and Brazil at Sweden ’58 are the only South Americans to win in Europe. A South American side reaching the last four in Europe should gain 0.5pts, with a full 1pt for the final, and vice versa for European sides in the Americas. Apart from South Korea, and that was as hosts, no Asian nation has made it to the semi-final stage to date, no African nation has done so, thus the award of points for “away” hemisphere rather than for “away” continent seems fair and accurate. At least for now.
From 1986 to 1994, the six initial groups eliminated only one third of the teams, as four third-placed sides reached the last sixteen. On the other hand, group winners have done more at the finals than runners-up and also-rans. There are more group winners in later years, but we should acknowledge that the World Cup has expanded not simply for commercial and political reasons but because the quality of global football has risen. While thumpings were regular occurrences in the ’70s and ’80s, there are fewer true minnows, as Costa Rica proved in Brazil: the alleged makeweights in a group containing three former World Cup winners came out on top. So there are 0.5pts for winning a group in the era of sixteen-team tournaments, and 1pt subsequently.
Any ranking scheme when teams do not simply all play each other home and away has an arbitrary edge to it; look at the scepticism that greets every announcement of the FIFA rankings. But just as England should never give up trying at the World Cup, we should not give up trying to measure how bad, post ’66, they have been, relative to their own performances and those of other countries.
If we cannot acknowledge our realistic place in football’s world order then we are condemned to more frustration, more dashed expectations — and more shock and surprise when teams such as Costa Rica can get the better of us. If we can broadly accept that a raft of countries have left us far behind, we will perhaps be more willing to implement the policies that have led to their success. And if — because of the clash of interests between our globally focused clubs and the national team — we are unwilling to reform, then we may at least embrace such lesser successes as we can achieve.
Tables are cumulative, beginning with 1970 and adding each team’s points successively through to 2014.
Teams in bold scored points in this tournament; teams not in bold show points scored in previous tournaments.
Points scheme: winner = 13, runner-up = 7, semis = 4, quarters = 2, group-winner = 0.5/1, away hemisphere = 0.5/1
England’s decline from the status of World Champions was not as swift as, say, France’s, eliminated winless and goalless in the first round in 2002 (albeit as European champions). Instead, 1970 is one of our great, improbable what-might-have-beens: Gordon Banks laid low by food poisoning and replaced by Peter Bonetti, a two-goal lead lost, Bobby Charlton substituted at 2-1 to save him for the semi-final, a Geoff Hurst equaliser in extra time mysteriously disallowed as West Germany won 3-2. Still, at least Alf Ramsey’s team pick up a couple of points in this analysis for having got this far, along with Peru and the hosts, Mexico.
On their own in fifth sit the Soviet Union, quarter-final losers but also winners of their group, with 2.5pts. It is one of the oddities of the global game that while one superpower barely paid attention to the world’s number-one sport during the Cold War, the one that did largely flattered to deceive. And Russia have continued to do so, as Putin’s putative World Cup looms (we can live in hope there is yet time for a change in 2018 venue).
Uruguay, twice World Cup winners, lost a semi-final to Brazil best remembered for Pelé’s extraordinary dummy on the goalkeeper; they earn 4pts in our first table. West Germany’s reward for their epic semi with Italy, in which Franz Beckenbauer played on with a broken clavicle, is 5pts as they also won their group and reached a semi in their “away” hemisphere. Italy lost 4-1 in the final, but the scoreline is remembered more than the fact that they took this greatest Brazil into the final quarter of the game level, four days after the draining 4-3 extra-time thriller with the Germans. Dino Zoff and co earn 8.5pts, as European runners-up in the Americas after winning their group. Which leaves only Brazil, picking up and keeping the Jules Rimet Trophy and claiming 13.5pts, including their bonus for taking the group, as well as the cup, off England.
The finals in West Germany were as good as it got for communist football nations. Of the eight point-scorers in these rankings, three were from Eastern Europe. The least of these was Tito’s Yugoslavia, who edged out Brazil (and third-placed, unbeaten Scotland) on goal difference, thanks to a 9-0 mauling of Zaire, but finished bottom of the second group stage. Still, that’s worth 3pts in our scheme, as were East Germany’s efforts, winning Group One thanks to Jurgen Sparwasser’s goal, which secured victory over West Germany in the only competitive meeting of the nations divided by the wall. (In February 1990 the pair were drawn in the same group for Euro ’92 qualifying, but the wall had already tumbled and football’s plans were overtaken by reunification.)
And then there was Poland: Kazimierz Deyna, Grzegorz Lato, Jan Tomaszewski and all. The conquerors of England in Chorzow then held on for that crucial draw at Wembley. Seven years, two months and seventeen days after winning the World Cup there, Sir Alf Ramsey’s last competitive side could not secure the win they needed to reach the finals.
But when you analyse England’s 1970s failures, it’s worth remembering that the sides they lost to all went on to achieve something memorable. West Germany lost the 1970 semi but won the 1974 tournament on home soil as 1972 European champions, after scorching England at Wembley in the home and away quarter-finals. Poland, meanwhile, won their group at the 1974 finals, ahead of Argentina, and contested what was in effect a semi against the hosts, losing in appalling conditions that did not suit the 1972 Olympic champions’ game. England would go on to fail to qualify for Euro ’76 — but that was won by the side that beat them, Czechoslovakia. And that’s before you get to the Italy side that Don Revie’s team had to face in the battle to reach the next World Cup.
To mention Argentina ’78 yet would be to get ahead of ourselves, though. Back in ’74, the Poles take 4.5pts as group winners reaching the last four. The other point-scorers start with Argentina and Sweden, with 2pts for reaching the last eight. Brazil lost their crown thanks to a 2-0 win for the best team in the tournament, Holland; the South Americans made the last four, though, to add 4.5pts to those from their 1970 title.
Alas for total football, Holland fell short amid a certain amount of controversy. England did have one finalist, the referee Jack Taylor, who correctly awarded the Dutch a first-minute penalty but more dubiously balanced that out with one for West Germany, for whom Gerd Muller added a second and decisive goal. Holland as group-winning runners-up have 7.5pts, but 13pts tie West Germany with Brazil overall, on 17.5pts. England, stuck on 2pts, are already ninth equal overall.
And things did not get any better at Argentina ’78, as once again England (in the words of the Scottish song) didnae qualify. Ron Greenwood presided over the last rites after Don Revie had conceded too big a goal difference advantage to Italy. But, yes, it was Italy, not makeweights: past failures had put England in the same qualifying group as the 1934 and ’38 champions and 1970 runners-up, who did well enough at these finals to beat the eventual winners, Argentina, in the group stage. They pick up 5pts, as last-four finishers outside their hemisphere and group-winners.
Other point-scorers included Peru, despite their not scoring a single goal and conceding ten in the second group stage. The conquerors of Scotland were the last South American team outside the big two to make the final eight until Paraguay and Uruguay in 2010. Like Austria and Poland, group-winners who did not reach the last four, they gain 2.5pts — 0.5 more than the defending champions, West Germany who having lost 3-2 to Austria in the second group stage exited the tournament.
Brazil, cost a place in the final by scheduling that allowed Argentina to know the margin of victory they required against Peru, were second to Austria at the group stage and in the Americas so gain only 4pts — but that’s enough to regain their overall lead from the Germans. Holland, the width of the post in the final from a late winner that could have brought down the Argentinian junta and changed the course of British political history (well, maybe), take 8pts as European finalists in the Americas. And, begrudgingly given the rule manipulation and the antics that kept the Dutch waiting, we give Argentina 13pts.
And absent England? Overall, now down to thirteenth, while Brazil break the tie with Germany to move 2pts ahead at the top.
For someone who was not yet three when England lost their crown in Mexico, seeing the national team in the World Cup Finals was a long time coming. That it took just twenty-seven seconds for Bryan Robson to put England ahead against France made it seem worth the wait, but the end was agony: unbeaten after five games but edged out in the second group stage. Still, it was another last-eight finish, as group winners, and with the Finals expanded to twenty-four sides that’s worth 3pts — which is what Brazil picked up, too.
Earning 1pt each, as initial group-winners who finished bottom in their three-team second sections, are Northern Ireland and Belgium. With 2pts, in the top eight without winning their group, are the Soviet Union and — despite the disgrace of the “Anschluss game” against West Germany — Austria.
France were beaten by England in their opening match but ultimately undone only by weak refereeing and poor penalties, as the West Germany goalkeeper Harald Schumacher stayed on the pitch, despite his challenge knocking the French defender Patrick Battiston into a coma, to win a semi-final shootout. The French pick up 4pts points, one fewer than Poland, beaten by Italy in their semi but initial group-winners.
The Italians had almost gone out in the group stage but instead emerged as overall winners, inspired by Paolo Rossi, rehabilitated after a match-fixing ban. They beat West Germany 3-1 in the final. The winners take 13pts, the runners-up 7pts.
That is enough for West Germany (28pts) to overtake Brazil (25), the previous leaders, and Italy (26.5) split the pair. England, after their first Finals in a dozen years, overtake Peru, Uruguay, Austria, the USSR, East Germany and Yugoslavia, shooting up from thirteenth to seventh — but with barely half the points of Poland in sixth.
Back in Mexico, back in a genuine quarter-final. There was no 1970-style squandered lead against Argentina, instead England trailed to a pair of dramatically contrasting Diego Maradona goals before not quite pulling off a stunning comeback once John Barnes was on the pitch.
That is 2pts in our system, because Morocco won the group — one of a trio to top their section but go out in the last sixteen, along with Denmark and the Soviet Union, and take 1pt. England are matched on 2pts by Spain, who thumped the Danes 5-1 but then succumbed to a Belgium team on an all-time high. Brazil and Mexico both won their groups and exited the quarter-finals on penalties to take 3pts each.
Six of the Belgians who would face England in the last sixteen four years hence were in the side that lost the semi-final to Argentina and collect 4.5pts, for being in the semi-finals in the Americas. France match that achievement, but felt rather less good about a second straight last-four loss to West Germany, a damp squib after the win against Brazil and the building up of the semi as revenge for Battiston.
As for the Germans, their 8pts for being losing finalists in the wrong hemisphere extended their lead over Brazil but Argentina — winning a second World Cup in eight years — overtake Italy.
And England? Pushed down to eighth by France, despite Gary Lineker winning the tournament golden boot as top scorer.
One of the oddities about Italia ’90 is that despite its near mythological status in England, to many independent judges it was the World Cup’s nadir in terms of the quality of football. The officiating was awful at times, with a decision to use referees as linesmen leading to especially poor offside decisions. There were red cards from start to finish but there should have been more, and the calls for reform in the game’s laws were enhanced by the cynicism on show. There was an all-time-low goals-per-game ratio of 2.21, and both semi-finals had to be settled on penalties.
To the English it all looks so different: Pavarotti, Platt, Gazza, and a second World Cup semi twenty-four years after the previous one, with Chris Waddle’s shot against the post and then penalty into stratosphere the difference between heaven and… well, an enduring warm glow that is far from hellish. Plus 5pts, as semi-finalists and group-winners.
That total was matched by Italy, and surpassed by an Argentina side that deserved worse than being runners-up but could easily have won the whole thing, and pick up 8pts including one for being South American finalists in Europe. West Germany scored two penalties and one free-kick in their final three matches to be underwhelming winners for a lead-extending 13pts.
On their own with 3pts stand Cameroon, Africa’s first quarter-finalists, who would have gone further with better finishing against an England side that almost froze under the burden of being favourites to reach a semi-final. Czechoslovakia and the Republic of Ireland get off the mark with 2pts as losing quarter-finalists, matched by Yugoslavia, while Spain and Brazil pick up 1pt apiece as group-winners who went out in the last sixteen.
And so, at the midway point between 1966 and today, England have stacked up 12pts — one fewer than they would have started with if we had included that victory. And overall, they trail all the winners — Brazil, West Germany, Argentina and Italy — plus Holland, and are level with Poland. The worst is yet to come.
Of the eight quarter-finalists at USA ’94, seven were from Europe — and the odd team out were the ones to lift the trophy. Brazil, holding firm on penalties against Italy in the final, also won their group to pick up 14pts. Roberto Baggio and co — in the middle of a run of losing a semi, a final and then a quarter-final on penalties — had almost gone out in the first round but instead, as European finalists in the Americas, take 8pts, while those improbable semi-finalists Sweden and Bulgaria take 4.5pts each.
Holland were floored by a Branco free-kick after recovering from 2-0 down against Brazil. Romania’s outfielders were worth a place in the last four but their goalkeeper was not, and Sweden advanced as a result. This pair of quarter-final losers, plus Germany, won their groups so get 3pts. Spain should have had a late penalty for an elbow-blow that led to an eight-match ban for the perpetrator, Mauro Tassotti, and cost the victim, Luis Enrique, half a pint of blood; Italy went down the other end and scored the winner. Spanish misfortune yields another 2pts, while Mexico and Nigeria — group-winners who lost in the last sixteen — pick up 1pt apiece.
At least England were back. The 1998 campaign — which finished with a defeat to Argentina featuring Michael Owen’s goal, Sol Campbell’s disallowed one, ten men battling so hard after David Beckham’s (deserved) red card — was a bitter-sweet experience. The bitterness grew following the disintegration of Glenn Hoddle’s short-lived reign as England manager. And losing on penalties to Argentina in the last sixteen without winning the group is worth zero points in our scheme.
Romania, who had topped England’s group, were also last-sixteen losers but pick up 1pt for that earlier achievement, likewise Nigeria for the same feat. Denmark beat Nigeria but were quarter-final losers and are awarded 2pts. Italy’s penalty shoot-out nightmare continued in the quarter-final they lost against France, while Argentina were done by a piece of brilliance from Dennis Bergkamp that relegates Owen’s effort to the second best scored past Carlos Roa in these finals. The big surprise was that along with Italy and Argentina, Germany were also picking up only 3pts, as group-winners going out in the last eight.
Croatia self-destructed against the Germany at Euro ’96, but took full advantage of a red card five minutes before the end of the first half of their quarter-final and ran out 3-0 winners over the Germans. They even led France in the semi, but had to settle for finishing third overall — and claiming 4pts. Holland lost to Brazil again, this time on penalties, but take 5pts as group-winners.
Which leaves Brazil and France. The hosts had never got beyond the semis; they were without Laurent Blanc, sent off against Croatia thanks to a foolish flick and Slaven Bilic’s play-acting; and they were in effect playing without strikers. But Zinedine Zidane left his mark on the final with two goals, and Brazil were in crisis over Ronaldo’s health. The champions capitulated, conceding the first three-goal defeat in the final since Pelé and co beat Italy in 1970. France 13pts, Brazil — in their away continent — 8pts.
Overall, the French triumph took them clear of England, while Brazil, Holland, Germany, Argentina and Italy all improved their lead too.
Given that the talk after the qualifying group home defeat to Germany in the wake of a disastrous Euro 2000 was of England not even making it to World Cup 2002, that they did get to the South Korea & Japan tournament was laudable; that it came via the famous 5-1 in Munich the more so. They also survived an awful finals group draw to eliminate Argentina. And then Denmark were swamped 3-0 inside the first half — as in Munich, even Heskey scored. When Michael Owen put them ahead against Brazil, anything was possible.
Except being England, it wasn’t. In the end an injury-hit side failed to make a second-half impression even after the match-winner, Ronaldinho, had been sent off. Sven-Goran Eriksson’s side take 2pts, the same as the USA, with their best finish since being 1930 semi-finalists, and Senegal, Africa’s second quarter-finalists. Three group-winners — Mexico, Sweden and co-hosts Japan — take 1pt apiece.
Spain’s latest tale of woe was a linesman deciding the ball had gone out of play before a cross that was successfully converted, this time to the benefit of South Korea, who had also received favourable decisions against Portugal and Italy, and now became the eighth different team to make the last four since Italia ’90, just before Turkey — in their first World Cup Finals since 1954; they’ve not qualified again to date either — became the ninth.
That pair, 4pts each, fell to Germany — in their first semi-final as a united country — and Brazil, respectively, setting up a first final between two of the World Cup’s most successful teams. A fumble by Oliver Kahn, the player of the tournament less than a year after that spanking by England, led to Ronaldo’s first, and Brazil had a fifth victory, 2-0.
Their 13pts takes them to 66pts overall; Germany, despite 8pts, are overtaken as the leaders, 2pts behind.
If reaching a quarter-final in 2002 felt like an achievement, Sven-Goran Eriksson’s failure to break England’s penalty-losing streak at Euro 2004, a limp qualifying campaign and an appallingly prurient interest in a single man’s sex life meant that the Swede was on his way out, come what may in Germany. And what came was another quarter-final, and another penalty defeat to Portugal. This one was with ten men after Wayne Rooney’s absurd stamp on Ricardo Carvalho. Another 3pts for England, with the Portuguese winners another team to add to the list of post-Italia ’90 semi-finalists.
Portugal’s neighbours, Spain, were one of two group-winners, along with Switzerland, to lose in the last sixteen. While Switzerland’s goalless, penalty-shoot-out defeat to Ukraine was probably the worst game of the Finals, Spain had another classic tale of misfortune: with the scores at 1-1, Thierry Henry took a dive to win the free-kick for the first of a pair of France goals in the last ten minutes. When would Spain’s pain end? 1pt for them and the Swiss.
Ukraine lost their quarter-final to Italy, as expected. But the other two games carried on South American sides’ poor records in Europe: Argentina losing on penalties to Germany, and Brazil falling to a resurgent France. 3pts each for the group-winning losers.
In the last four, Portugal went down limply, to France, while Germany — for whom that 2002 final was an anomaly in what proved to be a period of sustained mediocrity — rose to the occasion as hosts but fell to two late extra-time goals for Italy, as penalties beckoned. 5pts for the group-winning losers.
Just as in 1998, Zinedine left his mark on the final — but this time with a red card in his final competitive game, for a head-butt on Marco Materazzi. Italy, too, finally broke their run of penalty disasters. France take 8pts and the winners 13pts.
Overall, Germany claw back the 2pt deficit and now share their lead with Brazil, Italy have more than three times England’s total and France are looking good, too.
A first African World Cup — and for the first time the hosts failed to make it out of their group. Still, more painful fates can happen than the one that befell South Africa.
Ask Ghana, for whom Asamoah Gyan missed a penalty against Uruguay that would have given the continent their first semi-finalists. Instead the South Americans — playing in the last four without the man who gave away the goal-saving penalty, Luis Suarez — reached the semis for the first time since 1970.
Or ask England, victims of a weird humiliation in the last sixteen, losing 4-1 to Germany despite scoring twice, the second being a Frank Lampard equaliser that the officials did not see had sailed over the line.
Of course, Ghana get 2pts and England — denied first place in their group by ineptitude and a late goal for the USA — get none.
There were three group-winning quarter-finalists eliminated, with 3pts awarded to each, all from South America: Paraguay narrowly by Spain, Argentina in emphatic fashion by Germany, and Brazil by Holland, Wesley Sneijder’s double exacting a measure of national revenge for the 1998 semi-final defeat to the same team.
In the last four, the Dutch edged out Uruguay 3-2 and Spain won 1-0 for the third straight game, against Germany, to leave the losers with 5pts. For the Germans, that is enough to give them a 2pt overall lead.
The final, alas, was a letdown for everyone but the Spanish, who won 1-0 once again, against ten men in a game scarred by some horrendous Dutch clogging. Holland’s third final ended with neutrals pleased they had lost, in contrast to ’74 and ’78.
The Dutch still get 7pts, the Spanish 14pts — the latter more than enough to overhaul England as they added the world title to the European crown, ending decades of letdowns.
Since deposing England as World Champions in 1970, the Germans had already established themselves at the top of our tree before they reached Brazil, albeit by a narrow margin. What followed demonstrated the gap between the 1966 finalists in emphatic style: England failing to get out of their group for the first time since 1958, Germany becoming the first European team to win the World Cup in the Americas and doing so via a demolition of the hosts that will scar a generation of fans of the second best team in these rankings. England 0pts, Germany 14pts.
All four losing quarter-finalists were also group-winners: Colombia, France, Costa Rica and Belgium pick up 3pts each. France were already ahead of England and the others were not close enough to catch them. But semi-finalists Brazil — despite a humiliation for the ages — gain another 5pts and Holland 5.5pts, while Argentina pick up 8pts for losing the final.
It was the Germans who lost the 1966 final, the Germans who knocked out the World Champions in 1970 — and the Germans who outlasted Bobby Robson’s side at Italia ’90. For us that is a high point; for the Germans a losing semi would be a missed opportunity.
Overall, the Germans go out in the last eight about as often as England do; the difference is that when they don’t lose a quarter-final, they usually reach the final, while we are lucky to make the last sixteen.
On the one hand, England are technically part of an elite club of World Cup winners. On the other, only Uruguay — a country with a population smaller than Scotland’s — of those has fared worse in the past forty-eight years and even they can boast one more semi-final, bookending a long barren spell. And while the Dutch have never quite delivered in the final they have an emphatically superior record (bolstered by that European Championship win in 1988).
In the six finals up to Italia ’90, England failed to reach two World Cup finals at all — but they made the last eight each time they did qualify, going one better in Italy. In the six finals since Gazza’s tears, they have failed to qualify only the once — but on three of the occasions when they have made it, they failed to earn any points in our chart.
Since Italia ’90, all the teams other than England who had previously won a World Cup have at least reached the semi-finals: Italy, Brazil, Germany, Uruguay and, in 2014, Argentina. Of that quintet, only Uruguay have not reached the final itself; instead France (won one, lost one), Spain (won one) and Holland (lost one) take the number of finalists in the past twenty-four years to seven, and it is these seven teams that head England in the table.
Sweden, Bulgaria, Croatia, Turkey, South Korea and Portugal join Uruguay in being semi-finalists. The fact that success has been so widely spread has an odd effect on our table: England have dropped only from equal-sixth to eighth. But our total of 5pts since Italia ’90 is bettered emphatically by the seven teams above us, as well as narrowly by Sweden, while being matched by Uruguay, South Korea and Turkey. A further nine teams — Romania, Denmark, Senegal, Ukraine, Ghana, Paraguay, Colombia, Belgium and Costa Rica — can also claim our high point of a losing quarter-final. We have not quite slipped into the pack, but we are deeply unconvincing leaders of it.
We can analyse many of England’s failures and point to a freakish or knife-edge element — two shootouts in which England needed just one more decent penalty-taker; Campbell’s (not unreasonably) disallowed goal in ’98; Lampard’s (absurdly) disallowed goal in 2010, in the only World Cup Finals game England have lost by more than one since the 1962 quarter-final. But the trend is unmistakeable and before the unfortunate exits we never impressed in the manner of Spain — for so long the victims of ill-luck until their 2008–12 run of two European Championships and a World Cup.
Only once since 1970 have we reached a quarter-final as favourites, against Cameroon in 1990, and we almost made a hash of that one. The group-stage victory against Argentina in 2002 was the one time in World Cup Finals that we have won a match as underdogs since — well, arguably forever. Sometimes we punch our weight, but we never punch any higher.
You could make an optimistic case through rose-tinted spectacles that had the team gone further in ’82, ’86, or ’90, this would have been a correction to some sort of norm, and that the ’70s were serial misfortunes of the kind that afflicted Spain. Since Italia ’90 and especially Germany 2006, though, increasing failure has knocked off those glasses and stomped on them. An England success now, whether continental or global, would smack not of a rightful return to the top but more of the sort of anomalous moment of European Championship triumph enjoyed by Denmark in 1992 and Greece twelve years later.
Does the past offer any grounds for hope? If you look far enough back. England had not reached a semi-final before 1966, either, with just a couple of convincing quarter-final defeats to go with the farce of losing to the USA in 1950 and the 1958 brave battle in the shadow of genuine tragedy, the Munich air disaster, that robbed England of a number of certain star-players at that tournament. The circumstances in 1958 were horrifically unique, but the fact remains that it was only eight years between England failing to get out of their group and being World Champions. 1966 can seem inevitable with hindsight but no host nation had won the tournament since 1934. After the 2018 bid debacle (with the slight consolation of the subsequent disintegration of Sepp Blatter’s FIFA) there is no home World Cup for England remotely on the horizon, but we could get to play the conclusion of the transcontinental Euro 2020 at Wembley if we can navigate our way around the mainland. There has been no true shock-winner of a World Cup since West Germany beat the mighty Hungary in 1954, but the European miracles of Denmark and Greece are a reminder that knockout football will always have an unpredictable element.
We can, therefore, still dream. But the lesson of the past fifty years, and especially the past two decades, is that it is only a dream — and unless something fundamental changes it will remain so.