Englands biggest disappointment?

Shandypants

Shandypants

Well-known member
Which one..

1970 two nil up and the Germans to lose 3-2

1982- no defeats as different format with a second round group stage. Keegans missed header

1986- Hand of God plus linekers diving header that I still can't fathom how it didnt go in

1990- semi final penalties Germany

1996 Euros semi final penalty defeat Germany

1998- penalty loss to Argentina, Campbell goal wrongly disallowed

2002- QF loss Brazil. Ronaldinho fluke he's admitted he didn't mean it

2006 QF penalty defeat Portugal

2010 Lampard goal but no goal Germany

2018 semi final defeat Croatia

2020 euro final defeat penalties Italy

2022 last night.....

My top 3
1. 1996 we had home advantage and played well. I thought we over achieved a bit in 1990 but I honestly thought we were going to beat the Germans on penalties that night. The 2020 euro final I could deal with as we hadn't played well enough.
2. Last night, perhaps it's the rawness of it. There is also a cumulative effect, can't take anymore feeling. Good players but can't win when in matters. If we hand won last we have the best chance of winning the WC!
3. 1986 hand of God. We played well 2nd half but to late really as the damage had been done, plus the injustice of it all
4. 1998 was a tough one, I thought we were the better team

I was only one in 1970 so I can't really comment on that, the others were disappointing but I think we were second best in those matches anyway. Its a long sorry list of failures though, can we won a tournament in my life (I'm 53) I thought not but international football seems to be more of a level playing field with Brazil and Germany on the wane. I'm sure we have the potential but can we mentally overcome?? We've had home advantage twice and fairly easy routes to final/semi finals of late. What a bummer.
 
What a thoroughly depressing list that is!
Any of the penalty shootout defeats - there's something about getting knocked out when you haven't even lost the game that is very hard to take.
Last night was very disappointing too, but also encouraging in a way because we outplayed the reigning world champions and that really does bode well for the future. We'll get that breakthrough knock-out game win soon imo and then we'll go from strength to strength when we finally banish those mental blocks that we still have.
 
bollieboy said:
Last night - the other times, if we had been successful in those particular games, we probably still would not have won the trophy. If we had won last night I am pretty confident that we would have gone on to be World Cup winners.
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96 we would have won the euros vs Czechs. 90 the Argentinian team were poor.
 
2016 being knocked out by Iceland in the round of 16 after being one goal up. We looked absolutely dreadful and fully deserved to lose.

Last night hurts because I reckon we'd have gone on to win the tournament. The performance wasnt bad and you can argue we were the better side, France just had two moments of brilliance and we missed a pen.
 
We've also to accept that the player who won the Ballon D'or was missing for France and Pogba plays well for them. It was a great chance, that pisses me off even more when I think about it.
 
Worth mentioning the 2 games against Holland in 1993/94.

Holland player fouled outside penalty area but fell in the box ( similar to Kane last night but a couple feet back)
and awarded a penalty. That made it 2-2.

Then there was the David Platt incident in the return game where he was flattened inside the penalty area line.
Koeman should have had a straight red and penalty awarded. Instead he had a yellow and ref awarded free kick on the line! Came to nothing.
To add salt into the wound Koeman scored with one of his free kicks to virtually end Englands World Cup hopes.
 
Currently 56 years of hurt and counting....

We just seem destined for perpetual disappointment and heartache.

If it wasn't for bad luck we wouldn't have any! 😣
 
GrahamwantshisOates said:
Worth mentioning the 2 games against Holland in 1993/94.

Holland player fouled outside penalty area but fell in the box ( similar to Kane last night but a couple feet back)
and awarded a penalty. That made it 2-2.

Then there was the David Platt incident in the return game where he was flattened inside the penalty area line.
Koeman should have had a straight red and penalty awarded. Instead he had a yellow and ref awarded free kick on the line! Came to nothing.
To add salt into the wound Koeman scored with one of his free kicks to virtually end Englands World Cup hopes.
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Resulting in Graham Taylor telling the linesman that the ref had got him the sack.
 
Without question its the Euro final defeat on penalties. Basically one kick away from winning something , you can't get closer.
You see the reaction to the women winning the Euros in this country, times it by a hundred for the men. It would have been huge .
 
so much bloody hurt!!! we never seem to get the run of the green / make one error / we bad decision

you could argue that it is to do with the psyche ... but the rugby union and cricket lads, Olympic dudes have all won major tournaments in the last 20/25 years ...
 
Don't know how many times I have to say it every time England or Liverpool play decent opposition Henderson goes missing .I knew it before a ball was kicked.He runs around lost and when he gets the ball he plays a pointless 5 to 10 yard sideways or backpass .He was back to top form pointing again last night as well .Ok against crap players but out of his depth at top level you never see him play well against good opposition
 
phill said:
Don't know how many times I have to say it every time England or Liverpool play decent opposition Henderson goes missing .I knew it before a ball was kicked.He runs around lost and when he gets the ball he plays a pointless 5 to 10 yard sideways or backpass .He was back to top form pointing again last night as well .Ok against crap players but out of his depth at top level you never see him play well against good opposition
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Nonsense. We were more than good value last night.
 
phill said:
Don't know how many times I have to say it every time England or Liverpool play decent opposition Henderson goes missing .I knew it before a ball was kicked.He runs around lost and when he gets the ball he plays a pointless 5 to 10 yard sideways or backpass .He was back to top form pointing again last night as well .Ok against crap players but out of his depth at top level you never see him play well against good opposition
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Yet despite all that he's got 70 plus caps for England, played in 6 different tournaments, survived 10 years at Liverpool and won the Champions League, Premier League, League Cup ,FA Cup , Super Cup and all as Captain. All by being shit. Remarkable.
 
1970 all day long. We had already won, two up and cruising. Beckenbauer had spent all afternoon chasing shadows ( Bobby Charlton), when Alf Ramsey decided to save Bobby for the S/F and substituted him. Franz then ran riot, released from his chore. He scored ( Peter Bonetti’s faux pas)
and generally ran the rest of the game. Uve Seeler equalised, and Gerd Muller ( der bomber) won it in extra time. If you a penalty miss last night was tough to take, you are lucky not to have had to watch the above. It tool England over a decade to recover from it. We didn’t even qualify for the next two WC’s. It scarred an entire generation, including me.
‘
 
Middxile said:
1970 all day long. We had already won, two up and cruising. Beckenbauer had spent all afternoon chasing shadows ( Bobby Charlton), when Alf Ramsey decided to save Bobby for the S/F and substituted him. Franz then ran riot, released from his chore. He scored ( Peter Bonetti’s faux pas)
and generally ran the rest of the game. Uve Seeler equalised, and Gerd Muller ( der bomber) won it in extra time. If you a penalty miss last night was tough to take, you are lucky not to have had to watch the above. It tool England over a decade to recover from it. We didn’t even qualify for the next two WC’s. It scarred an entire generation, including me.
‘
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Dont forget Gordon Banks got food poisoning the day of the game and was at his peak...We were at Pontins Southport for the week...ruined my holiday.
 
I be was particularly pissed off after 2010 - had an awesome team on paper but the players just seemed that they couldn’t be arsed and their attitude stank. Fell out of love watching England for a long time after that.
 
What’s truly disappointing about last night is that all you’d ask for is a chance to fall to your best striker. That happened and we still couldn’t take our chance. Makes you feel like it will never happen.
 
I didn't feel the usual sense of crushing disappointment last night. This one just hasn't gripped me in the way it usually does. I guess partly because of where it's all taking place, partly because I knew FIFA would do for us if they possibly could, also partly because I blazed home to Wirral from watching that dismal fare in the afternoon and only arrived home just in time and mildly hypothermic. Never mind, the whole merry go round starts again now and we do at least have some decent players these days. I wonder what the starting eleven will be in Germany 2024? How many from last night? A good few I think.
 
Middxile said:
1970 all day long. We had already won, two up and cruising. Beckenbauer had spent all afternoon chasing shadows ( Bobby Charlton), when Alf Ramsey decided to save Bobby for the S/F and substituted him. Franz then ran riot, released from his chore. He scored ( Peter Bonetti’s faux pas)
and generally ran the rest of the game. Uve Seeler equalised, and Gerd Muller ( der bomber) won it in extra time. If you a penalty miss last night was tough to take, you are lucky not to have had to watch the above. It tool England over a decade to recover from it. We didn’t even qualify for the next two WC’s. It scarred an entire generation, including me.
‘
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I can still see that Muller celebration & I was only 11 at the time.
 
That is a long list of painful memories. I would like to add the defeat to Poland in about 1974 at Wembley, and the defeat in Holland in probably 1973.
Both matches did a lot of harm to our national team because they meant we failed to qualify for World Cups.
In both games we typically had zero luck, and in Holland another terrible refereeing performance 🙄.

The worst of all these? Possibly 1996 because it was on home soil (I would have swung for the strutting Andreas Moller that night).
Saturday still feels pretty bad, because I honestly thing we could have won the World Cup this time if our luck had been a bit kinder.
 
glasshalffull said:
That is a long list of painful memories. I would like to add the defeat to Poland in about 1974 at Wembley, and the defeat in Holland in probably 1973.
Both matches did a lot of harm to our national team because they meant we failed to qualify for World Cups.
In both games we typically had zero luck, and in Holland another terrible refereeing performance 🙄.

The worst of all these? Possibly 1996 because it was on home soil (I would have swung for the strutting Andreas Moller that night).
Saturday still feels pretty bad, because I honestly thing we could have won the World Cup this time if our luck had been a bit kinder.
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If we are talking about the same Poland game, we didn't actually lose. We drew 1-1. It was my first game at Wembley. Tomacewski the clown. Think it was the year before. 1973. It's been referenced above with Hunters mistake on the half way line although for me Shilton should have easily saved it.
 
20togo said:
If we are talking about the same Poland game, we didn't actually lose. We drew 1-1. It was my first game at Wembley. Tomacewski the clown. Think it was the year before. 1973. It's been referenced above with Hunters mistake on the half way line although for me Shilton should have easily saved it.
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Shilton at fault in both 73 and 90.

To be fair, Poland finished 3rd in the 74 World Cup.
 
20togo said:
If we are talking about the same Poland game, we didn't actually lose. We drew 1-1. It was my first game at Wembley. Tomacewski the clown. Think it was the year before. 1973. It's been referenced above with Hunters mistake on the half way line although for me Shilton should have easily saved it.
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Yep my mistake, forgot about our equaliser. That must have been a rude awakening to the joy and despair of being an England supporter!
 
We have been on ten penalty shoot outs in major tournaments and lost 7. That's a bad stat. Like Middxile says above the rot started in 1970.
 
Drawing against Poland in 1973? so we didn't qualify for 1974 was one that seemed unbelievable at the time.
I was only a boy but we had so many chances to win, it was almost unbelievable that we didn't.
Shilton made a bad mistake from almost the only time Poland attack for their goal.
That one hurt a bit, now I am not so invested.
This England team is the best since 1970 though
 
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