On This Day – 18th February
England played Spain on this day in 1987 at the Bernabeu and won 4-2, with Gary Lineker who scoring all four of all England’s goals.
Lineker was in red-hot form, having scored a hat-trick for Barcelona in the El Classico three weeks earlier. He had joined Barcelona the previous summer for £2.8 million and had already played against seven of the opponents. The remaining four players were his team mates at the Nou Camp!
It was Spain who scored first, Emilio Butragueno firing low past Peter Shilton just before the quarter-hour mark.
Ten minutes later, Gary Lineker scored his first goal of the evening. Bryan Robson hit the post from 20 yards, Glenn Hoddle chased down the rebound and chipped it to the far post and Lineker nodded in from two yards out.
Four minutes later, Lineker scored his second after receiving a nod-down by Viv Anderson after Glen Hoddle hit a free kick from out on the right touchline. That was how the score stayed until half-time.
Within a minute of the restart, Gary Lineker completed his hat-trick. Glenn Hoddle had a shot saved by Zubizerata and the Barcelona striker nodded in to an empty net.
Ten minutes later, Lineker scored his fourth of the night, firing low past his Barcelona team mate Zubizerata from the edge of the box. Ramon Vazquez added Spain’s second with ten minutes to go but they had left it too late to get a result.
The match itself attracted a crowd of 35,000. This made the stadium look very empty as its capacity was 98,000 at the time. The majority of the crowd went home disappointed, but Lineker left jubilant and with the match ball under his arm!
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