On Second Thoughts: Rob Smyth on England at Euro 88

Footballers pride themselves on taking one game at a time, but it is impossible to review their performances in such a way. All act as details on a bigger picture, from which judgement is made. If they didn’t, Avram Grant would still have a job, and Jupp Heynckes would not have been sacked straight after winning the Champions League with Real Madrid in 1998.

Another prime example is England’s performance at Euro 88, probably their most notorious at a major tournament since they starred in the American dream of 1950. It started with England as one of the heavyweights, after an outstanding qualification campaign, and ended with the captain, Bryan Robson, chinning the most experienced player, Peter Shilton.

The cumulative effect of their three games is incontrovertibly awful – three defeats, two goals scored, seven conceded – but there are enough mitigating circumstances to suggest that, in qualitative terms, it was nowhere near that bad. In the first game they fell victim to a once-in-a-generation sting; in the second they came out on the wrong side of an excellent contest; and in the third, already eliminated, they turned up in body but not mind.

With England at major tournaments, of course, qualitative judgements aren’t really possible. The football may be frequently grey but the judgements are emphatically black and white. So England emerged as national heroes from Italia 90 and Euro 96 even though, in reality, they only played well against the Dutch and the Germans in each tournament, and as public enemies No1-20 after Euro 88.

Clearly flaws were evident, as they tend to be in a side that loses all three games. They were hugely dependent on Gary Lineker and Bryan Robson for goals; going into the tournament they had 47 between them, more than the rest of the squad put together. We could debate the inclusion of Neil Webb (in fairness, then a superb attacking midfield player) over Glenn Hoddle for the first game against the Republic of Ireland all day. And England also had, in hindsight, an unforgivably callow central-defensive partnership of Mark Wright (aged 24) and Tony Adams (21). But with Terry Butcher out with a broken leg and Des Walker not making his debut until the first game after this tournament, the alternatives weren’t great. Everton’s Dave Watson was the only other specialist centre-half in the squad. Gary Pallister had never played top-flight football. Gary Mabbutt had not been selected since a chastening friendly defeat to West Germany nine months earlier. Terry Fenwick was Terry Fenwick.

It’s easy to think of Butcher as little more than a clenched fist of a defender, but he was so much better than that. And he gave the defence a reassurance without which Adams later admitted he was completely lost. Butcher’s injury was an example of the ill-fortune that bedevilled England. A strangely sluggish Lineker, who missed enough chances to win the Golden Boot in one match against the Irish, was later diagnosed with hepatitis B. Then there was the debilitating make up of Group B, a brutal challenge that included the Republic of Ireland and the two eventual finalists, Holland and the USSR. Even the little things went against them: all England’s games were scheduled in the sapping afternoon heat of West Germany.

Most of all, they were fiercely unlucky in their first two, decisive group games. Against Ireland it took them a half to recover from the surreal absurdity of Ray Houghton’s opening goal, but in the second half England battered Ireland and it took a ‘Robert Green’ game from Packie Bonner to deny them, Lineker in particular. While Ireland weren’t without threat themselves – Ronnie Whelan hit the bar in the second half – few would deny that England deserved to win. It was, in essence, an FA Cup shock – and while those on the end of such shocks are usually remembered, it is as victims rather than villains.

With Holland also losing their first game to the USSR, the match between the two group favourites three days later was exquisitely cut-throat. England started much the sharper: Lineker hit the post from a tight angle, and then Hoddle (preferred to Webb, which would have made the fantasy attacking sextet of Waddle-Hoddle-Robson-Barnes-Beardsley-Lineker had the excellent but slightly more prosaic Trevor Steven not been brought in for Waddle) slapped the same post with a sumptuous free-kick.

Yet it was Holland who led at half-time through a superb goal from Van Basten (although Lineker was very probably fouled by Frank Rijkaard in the build-up) in the 44th minute. England equalised after half-time thanks to the rabid desire of Robson, and after 70 minutes it was anyone’s game. Then Van Basten struck twice in four minutes to kill-off England, who were mathematically out when Ireland and the USSR drew later in the day. But overall this was one of those high-class contests between two very good sides from which the loser can take genuine pride, like Germany in the last World Cup semi-final and Chelsea in the Champions League final. Even the article on Uefa’s Euro 2008 website says that “the match emphasised the importance of luck in winning any major event”.

Not that this stopped the press from crucifying England. It was a case of another day, another holler, and they had even more to complain about when England threw the towel in for their final group game against the USSR, losing 3-1 after a miserable performance. It is tempting to disregard this as irrelevant: Bobby Robson made a number of changes, to give the likes of Watson, Chris Woods and Steve McMahon a game, and England performed with the self-loathing absent-mindedness of a heartbroken man gazing at the pub spirits.

Hoddle’s wretched mistake to gift Sergei Aleinikov the first goal inside three minutes showed that, while their bodies were on the pitch in Frankfurt, their minds were already at home. They would soon find that those already at home were out of their minds with anger at England’s performance. But maybe, on reflection, it wasn’t quite as bad as we thought at the time.