Alternative Football History Part VII – England beat West Germany in 1990 World Cup

We all know what happened in the 1990 World Cup Semi-Final. It’s ingrained in the memory of those who can remember the match and is one of a list of so-close-but-yet-so-far moments in English football.
Gary Lineker said “It’s the only thing I look back on with a thought of ‘if only'” when asked about the match.

The game was England’s biggest match in 24 years, when they the same opponents in the Final back in 1966. West Germany would get their revenge when they knocked England out of the next World Cup in Mexico, coming back from 2-0 down to win 3-2.

Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle were the unfortunate pair to miss penalties in the Semi-Final in Turin. It would take Pearce six years before he could exorcise the demons of that penalty miss. He made up for the miss by blasting home a penalty in the shoot-out victory over Spain in the Quarter-Finals of Euro ’96 before celebrating like a madman!
Waddle was never given the opportunity to make amends for missing the decisive spot kick in 1990. Graham Taylor, who took over from Bobby Robson in the England hot seat, played him for the final time in an England shirt in 1991.

But what if England had won? What if Peter Shilton managed to stop one of West Germany’s penalties instead of getting nowhere near any of them?
Would Bobby Robson have stayed on as boss despite having an agreement to take over as PSV Eindhoven manager after the tournament?
Let’s find out by looking at an alternative end to Italia ’90…..

We start the story with the score at 3-3 in the the penalty shootout and Stuart Pearce has just placed the ball on the penalty spot.
The Nottingham Forest left back walked away from the ball, turned and ran in, smashing the ball hard down the middle of the goal. The West German goalkeeper Bodo Illgner dived to the right and couldn’t stop Pearce’s penalty from going in.
England lead 4-3 and Olaf Thon had his spot kick saved by 41 year old Peter Shilton leaving Chris Waddle the chance to win the shootout for England if he could find the back of the net with his kick.
Waddle hit his penalty hard into the top right hand corner of the net giving Illgner no chance. The England players ran to celebrate with Waddle and the West German players sportingly stayed on the pitch and shook every English player’s hand, congratulating them on reaching the Final.

Argentina were next and England would have to try and win the Final without their charismatic play-maker Paul Gascoigne, who picked up a yellow card against West Germany.
The press centred most of their attention on the fact that Gazza wouldn’t be playing and this took the pressure off the players that featured in the Final.

The Final was played in Rome and England’s opponents Argentina were lead by their enigmatic striker Diego Maradona.
Maradona scored twice when Argentina knocked England out four years previously, the first was a goal that he described as “the Hand of God”, when he rose to punch the ball past England keeper Peter Shilton.

England were out for revenge and the nation were desperate for England to not only win the World Cup, but to get Maradona back for cheating in the previous tournament in Mexico.

Bobby Robson named the same starting line-up that played against West Germany with one exception. The suspended Paul Gascoigne was replaced by Liverpool tough-man Steve McMahon.

After only four minutes of the Final, McMahon slid in hard on Diego Maradona, sending the Argentine crashing to the floor. He stood over Maradona who lay on the floor clutching his calf, jabbing his finger and shouted “That’s for the Hand of God goal you git!”.
Mexican referee Edgardo Codesal gave McMahon a yellow card for the foul and the Liverpool midfielder remained quiet for the remainder of the game.

Maradona wasn’t having the best of games and was always checking over his shoulder for McMahon. However, it wasn’t the Liverpool man who would antagonise him next. It was the turn of Terry Butcher, who had played in the Quarter Final back in 1986.

Argentina won their first corner after 18 minutes and as the corner was swung in by Roberto Sensini, Butcher punched Maradona in the back.
To Maradona’s credit, he didn’t dive on the floor, instead he tried to get on the end of Sensini’s corner.
Neither referee or either linesman spotted the punch and Mark Wright headed the ball away from danger.

England broke the deadlock two minutes before half-time as David Platt flicked a ball over the top of the Argentine defence and Gary Lineker smashed in a half-volley from just inside the penalty area.

Neither side looked like scoring in the second half and as the game went on, Argentina became more and more frustrated.
Pedro Monzon, Jorge Burruchaga, Juan Simon, Pedro Troglio and Gustavo Dezotti all got booked in the second half for various fouls on England players. Terry Butcher was given a yellow card for stamping on Troglio’s toes whilst waiting for Stuart Pearce to take a corner after 63 minutes but that was the only time that England showed any form of dissent.

When the final whistle went, the England players celebrated. The coaches and the rest of the squad ran on to the pitch to celebrate England’s first trophy in 24 years.
In stark contrast to the Semi-Final when the West Germans all shook the England player’s hands, not one Argentinian approached an opponent to offer congratulations. This was not unnoticed by Bobby Robson who mentioned it in his post-match interview.

“Our players were magnificent today. I am delighted that we were able to win the World Cup for our fans and we deserved to win.
I am most disappointed with the Argentines though. They showed no respect out there and very childish by not offering congratulations. Not one of them said well done or shook our hands. That’s very poor in my eyes.”

England returned home to Luton Airport and over a million fans met them at the airport. The team had an open-top bus tour around London and finished off at Buckingham Palace where they then all came out on the balcony to wave the World Cup trophy to the fans outside.

The players all became heroes overnight. Bobby Robson was offered another contract up to the 1994 World Cup. PSV Eindoven were adamant that he had signed a contract with them and had agreed to move there after the Finals. Robson came out and said that he had given them his word and intended on keeping to it. He was knighted in the New Year’s Honours List.

Graham Taylor stepped in to become the next England manager and at his introductory press conference told the press that he was worried about replacing a mana who had just won the World Cup!
He said “I’ve come in immediately after Robson has won the biggest honour possible. Now I’m not going to come in and be a turnip, I’m here to beat Bobby’s record. I want to win the European Championships the year after next and the World Cup in four years!”

Bryon Butler, the BBC Correspondent then asked Taylor if he was scared of failure and Taylor replied “Failure? Do I not like that! I don’t want that word in my vocabulary. I want to win and win well. Failure is not an option”. The phrase “Do I not like that!” became a catchphrase of Taylor’s after that.

One of the first things that Taylor demanded was the return of the Home Internationals. The FA had previously stated that they wanted to stop games with Scotland after trouble at a game between Scotland and England in 1989.
Taylor argued that as England wouldn’t have any World Cup qualifiers between 1992 and 1994 and England would need a tournament to play competitively in. Both the FA and Scottish FA agreed and the Home International began again in the summer of 1991.
The tournament format was changed with England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland playing each other once in a group format. The top two teams would then play in a Final at Wembley.

England would go on and qualify for Euro 92 with ease. They were unbeaten in their six qualifiers, winning three and drawing three of their six qualifying matches.
They also won the 1991 Home Championships, beating Scotland 3-0 in the Final at Wembley after topping the group. In the group stage, they had won 1-0 at Hampden Park in the first match against Scotland before beating Wales 2-0 in Cardiff and Northern Ireland were beaten 4-0 at Wembley.

The 1992 European Championships were an exciting tournament for England, with some incredible attacking football played throughout.
The winner of the First Division Golden Boot was Arsenal’s Ian Wright and Taylor made him Gary Lineker’s strike partner.

Both Wright and Lineker scored in England’s opening game against Denmark as England ran out 2-0 winners. Lineker’s goal was his 49th in an England shirt and he was now the joint-record goalscorer for England with Bobby Charlton.

All eyes were on Lineker in the next game against France and he didn’t disappoint. It would only take him 3 minutes and 26 seconds to score his record-breaking 50th goal for England, a trademark tap-in from six yards out after a cross from Chris Waddle.
Ian Wright then took advantage of poor defending from the Danes and scored two quick goals just after half an hour. David Platt then scored England’s fourth with five minute to go and England were comfortably through with one game to spare.

That match was against hosts Sweden and Taylor decided that he would rest Lineker and Wright, opting for Wolves hitman Steve Bull and Alan Smith, Wright’s strike partner at Arsenal. Bull would score in a dull 1-1 draw with the Swedes, Tomas Brolin scoring for the Swedes.

The Semi-Final was against Germany and this time it was the Germans who would win a Semi-Final on penalties.
The game finished 3-3 after extra time after England were winning 3-1 with 10 minutes of normal time remaining.
Gary Lineker had scored twice in the first half, Thomas Hassler then scored for Germany after an hour. Chris Waddle had added a third for England on 72 minutes but careless defending from Everton’s Martin Keown had allowed Jurgen Klinsmann to score twice in the final ten minutes for the Germans.

The sides couldn’t be separated in extra time and after four penalties each, neither team had missed from the spot in the shootout.
Peter Beardsley then hit the bar with his penalty and Matthias Sammer beat Chris Woods to send England home.

In the time that the rest of Europe tried to qualify for the 1994 World Cup, England had to settle for playing in friendlies. They did have the Home International Championships in the summer of 1993 and won it again, beating Wales 1-0 in the Final at Wembley.

The 1994 World Cup was a disaster for England as they lost every game in their group. 1-0 defeats to both Switzerland and Morrocco and a 3-0 defeat to Argentina meant that the World Champions went home without scoring a goal. Their defence of the trophy went without a whimper.

Graham Taylor allegedly resigned on the plane back to London as he sat between Bert Millichip and Graham Kelly.
Neither of the Football Association’s leading men tried to convince Taylor to stay and as the story goes, the three sat in complete silence for four hours!

I hope that you think my alternative version of events was worth the read and better than what happened in reality.!

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