Another major football tournament has come and it will continue for another two weeks without the involvement of the English football team because, yet again, they have fulfilled their role of the perennial underachiever by losing 2-1 to Iceland in the Round of 16 at UEFA Euro 2016. The player ratings make for grim reading, as the whole team had a night to forget.
England fans at home and around the world must surely be all drained out from thinking ‘this is our year’ only to watch their team crash out quite miserably more often than not. The sight of a lackluster English team struggling to cope with the obstacles set up by their opponents is an all too familiar sight. This recent loss against Iceland – whose population is equal to that of Leicester – is just another in a long and illustrious saga of shameful results.
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A top quality league and star players have never quite managed to come together to make a team to be reckoned with. And let’s not forget the Football Association’s (FA) horrendous choice in managers. One failed manager after the other has not helped their cause.
With England’s recent shame fresh in our minds, here’s a list of their top 7 worst international tournaments:
7. 2006 World Cup
The 2006 World Cup in Germany definitely wasn’t their worst result since they did make it to the quarter-finals. However, the way they went about exiting the tournament is what earns their performance 7th place on the list.
England was pretty evenly matched against Portugal in the quarter-final round. But the match itself tells quite another tale. Portugal was quite terrible as they barely created any chances for themselves. But England was even worse! The whole game was an endless succession of mistimed and badly aimed shots and one reckless move by Wayne Rooney. As if Beckham getting substituted because of an ankle injury wasn’t bad enough, Rooney stamped Ricardo Carvalho in the groin and got sent off! England paid the price for playing with 10 men as full time and extra time went goalless.
The penalty shootout that followed was an even bigger disaster. Even though Portugal missed their second and third shots, England refused to grab that opportunity. The two never-to-be great midfielders of England, Steven Gerrard, and Frank Lampard missed their penalties and the minute Jamie Carragher had to retake his, everyone had to know England were not going to make it. A miss from him and a scorcher from Ronaldo ensured England was out and Portugal was staying.
6. Euro 2004
Before the 2006 World Cup, England already had practice losing to Portugal in penalty shootouts as they had already met each other in the quarter-final stage of Euro 2004. After leading, England just let the whole game go to hell. Rooney suffered a broken foot and had to be taken off (he had already scored four goals in the tournament) and his replacement, Darius Vassell was nowhere up to the mark. After conceding their lead, the match ended 2-2 after extra time and England lost famously to Portugal in shootouts.
England was defensively ineffective during most of the game and their penalty takers were a huge disappointment. Their embarrassment was sealed when the winning penalty was taken by the Portuguese goalkeeper Ricardo.
5. 2014 World Cup
The 2014 World Cup must surely be fresh in the minds of football fans. England, unfortunately for them and their fans, had been drawn in the ‘group of death’ that year with Uruguay, Italy, and Costa Rica. England’s performance that year was one of their worst in recent history.
Granted they had been drawn with two teams who were in FIFA’s top ten but that can be no excuse for their performance. After all, it wasn’t Italy or Uruguay that topped their group but Costa Rica! After losing 2-1 to Italy and then again to Uruguay in their second game, England were out of the tournament before the first week was up.
Needless to say, failing to qualify past the group stage was a major embarrassment for England and everyone called for a shake-up at the higher echelons of English football. That never happened and Roy Hodgson continued to be manager in spite of terrible selection and bad tactics.
4. 1998 World Cup
Although the 1998 World Cup was almost two decades ago, millennials, parents and anyone older will remember that edition of the tournament for the infamous Round of 16 clash between England and Argentina.
England’s favourite son and star player David Beckham probably made the biggest mistake of his football career when he kicked Diego Simeone in the second half and was sent off. With one man down for England and the score tied at 2-2, it was basically Argentina’s game to win. And win they did. With no Beckham to create chances, the match had to be decided by a penalty shootout and England lost definitively.
The result was such a huge shock that Beckham and his family continued getting death threats weeks after the defeat.
3. Euro 1992
The 1990 World Cup was surprisingly good for England – they made it all the way to the semi-finals so most people expected them to have a good Euro in 1992. Well, that wasn’t meant to be as they drew their first two games of the group stage goalless and then lost their third one 2-1 to Sweden.
That last group game was exceptionally horrific for England fans. It was Gary Lineker’s final game for England and despite being drawn at 0-0 with Sweden, their then manager Graham Taylor decided to take Lineker off!
England exited the tournament in disgrace and Taylor’s infamous decision was denounced by fans, critics, and experts alike.
2. Euro 2016
This is going to sound very familiar. Euro 2016 could quite possibly have been England’s year to win. They had the youngest squad in the tournament with actively goalscoring forwards! But as always it was not meant to be. After a dogged draw with Russia, England bagged a win when they met Wales. Even though their third group stage match with Slovakia ended in a draw with no goals scored, England just about got through to the round of 16.
This is where it gets ugly for England because they had arguably the easiest draw. They were playing Iceland, debutantes at the Euro this time and still they just couldn’t win. Not even after leading from a Rooney penalty. Bad passes, non-existent goal scoring opportunities and terrible team selection by Hodgson was their undoing and no result has quite been as disgraceful as this. Well, other than the next one.
1. Euro 2008
There is just one other tournament where England did worse. What could possibly be worse than not making it past the group stages like they did in 2014? Well, the answer to that is not by qualifying at all. As if England’s football history could not be any worse, their so-called golden generation failed to qualify for the final rounds of Euro 2008.
They couldn’t qualify past Russia and Croatia who beat England 2-1 at Wembley. The only good that came of this disaster was the sacking of Steve McClaren and boy were England lucky to be rid of him.
