I was 15 in 1990, and spent most of the WC either drunk or hungover as my parents were away for 3 weeks and my brother and I had converted the family home into a makeshift dosshouse. Even so, my recollection of England's tournament is pretty clear, and throughout the whole thing it felt like we were either over-performing or running like God (mostly the latter) until zee germans inevitably ended it all. Whereas in 02 we actually felt like a competent team in a tournament full of poor / underperforming opponents, and when Owen scored vs Brazil it was definitely the one and only point in my life at which I've ever actually thought we might win a World Cup.

Hear hear.

But Pete forgets about variance and donkaments.

We lost to the eventual winners on penalties in the semi-final yet you never thought we could win it at any point? The things I learn on here.

At the time, I was hiking in the Norwegian woods. We almost broke into a remote vacation cabin because there was a TV inside lol. A group of >10 people going full ****** to watch a game of football.
Ended up asking some guys and spent much time arguing whether he was taking the piss or not. It just seemed so outlandish we'd lose 5-1 at home.

You got unlucky against us, fair enough. You conveniently omit, however, how lucky you got in the RO16 and quarters against Belgium and Cameroon respectively. You rode the ref decisions in both of them, if I recall correctly (for sure, though, against Cameroon). I'll give you David Platt's goal against Belgium was a beauty (albeit a super late one in what would otherwise have been a 120 minute 0-0).

Let's also not forget the group stages, against Ireland and Egypt, during which you came this close to a four-way drawing of lots on who advances.

If Egypt score the equalizer, your world cup contending side sees itself drawing lots against three teams to advance out of a group which, on paper, had two clear favourites and two clear dogs.

If a team that loses to the eventual winners in a penalty shoot out in the semi-final is not looked back on as a side that contended for the World Cup, then who was in the running?

You're repeating yourself.

So let me repeat myself, too.
You rode the variance train in each and every single preceding round to even reach the semis. I mean, I get it. The English don't have a lot of fond memories to look back on when it comes to their national team. So it's natural that mediocre performances like the one in 1990 are being sugar coated as "World Cup Contending".

I'd be embarrassed talking like that about a performance of Germany in which we almost had to draw lots to get out of an easy as **** group. For example, feel free to go quote-mining on what I have to say about our 2002 World Cup. I've never, ever, ever said a single good thing, on here or elsewhere, about that side other than the fact that it had Oliver Kahn in it (and I may be convinced that Ballack wasn't utter trash either).

The reason I am repeating myself is that it appears that my point got missed the first time. Evidently it got missed the second time as well.

At no point have I said that the 1990 England side were good, bad or indifferent. Nor have I been involved in any misty-eyed reminiscing, which you seem to find embarrassing, even though I haven't done it.

All I said was, in response to LO and Halo, that the idea that at no point during Italia 90 did we stand any chance of winning the tournament is absurd.

To make it more simple, since I am dealing with someone that is simple - if Betfair existed in 1990, during the whole tournament, what do you think the lowest price England would have traded at to win the tournament? 5/1? Shorter? If it was around that number, I would argue that team, be it England or the Leipzig Women's Flower Arranging Second XI, stood a non-negligible chance of winning.

You can go back to posting about whatever it is you were posting about now.

LÖL Ingerlund.

FYP.

France in 1998 were complete aids in every knock-out round except the final.

There are lots of teams who win the WC who are not great or don't perform well during the tournament, however If we had won it in Italia 90 people would say were were deserved winners and I don't think there were any better teams.

That team is miles ahead of current England.

Jesus SugarNut, you are a tool most of the time but you have outdone yourself this time.

If Egypt score a equaliser then England draw lots.

If England win the shootout they advance to the WC final. How's that for a variance train.

Stick to the Euro thread.

nah.

Good to see SN executing a textbook "just trolling" suppressing fire and withdrawl to try and mask him being a cretin.

We need to update that Ebola/AIDS gif to have it end with International Break

Or just stop having those AIDS discussions during every single one of them.

If that doesn't help, just lock the thread for the duration of it.

I think I found the cure for the ebola/aids :

https://www.facebook.com/OfficialFoo...0724021799865/ had me in stitches

even more reason to be happy for plop fans. goetze gundogan and reus also on their way soon i suppose

they could probably afford one 85m and 300k/wk bloke if they wanted to go for broke

Don't forget Zlatan

Maybe because there wasn't a single Arsenal player in the squad?

And please define "miles ahead". The game has progressed so much in the past 25 years that I don't think a single player from the Italia 90 squad gets into the current England team.

---

And stop with the insults people!

**** you ****!

Pretty sure Liverpool is mere inches away from having 6-8 German national team players in the side.
It'll help for the next run of fixtures, tbh. Can't wait.

Too much Italia 90 not enough Klopp going on at the moment imo.