Now I’m a self confessed non fan of football, but I do love watching and supporting England, that sense of patriotism, excitement that we could see our boys come home with the World Cup Trophy. Yeh I don’t have a clue who the players in our national side are today, yeh I show zero interest in domestic football, but maybe its the players of the late 90s that just had something that todays player just don’t have today, I can name most of the England 98 Squad, the 94 Squad, the 2002 Squad, but after those players started to retire, the players coming though to replace them, I have no clue.
1998, the England Squad was what we called The Golden Generation here in England, our football team had not looked this good for so so long, there really was a belief from even the sceptics that we really had the chance more than ever to actually bring football home and lift the World Cup trophy for only the second time in history.
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We had a fantastic mix of seasoned legends, along with rising stars! With Alan Shearer as captain and other still in their prime veterans of the England shirt like Tony Adams, Paul Ince, Stewart Pearce, Teddy Sheringham, and one of the best goalkeepers England has ever had, David Seaman, along with eager, hungry, rising stars such as the young 18yr old Michael Owen, Paul Scholes, Sol Campbell, Gary Neville, and of course David Beckham.
It wasn’t meant to be though, England play just 4 matches, reaching the last 16. Under the management of Glenn Hoddle, England won two of their group stage matches.
Group G: England 2 – 0 Tunisia
Date: June 15, 1998
Location: Stade Vélodrome, Marseille
Action: Alan Shearer opened the scoring with a header, and Paul Scholes sealed the victory with a late goal to start the tournament with a win.
Group G: Romania 2 – 1 England
Date: June 22, 1998
Location: Stade de Toulouse, Toulouse
Action: Viorel Moldovan scored first for Romania. Substitute Michael Owen equalised for England, but Dan Petrescu scored a last-minute winner.
Group G: Colombia 0 – 2 England
Date: June 26, 1998
Location: Stade Félix-Bollaert, Lens
Action: Needing a result to guarantee qualification, England advanced to the knockout stage through a first-half strike from Darren Anderton and a signature long-range free-kick from David Beckham.
But in the now infamous final 16 draw against Argentina, David Beckham would for some time become the most vilified figure in English football, after receiving a controversial red card.
Beckham had been fouled by Argentina’s Diego Simeone, and whilst laying there on the ground, Beckham retaliated by flicking his leg up hitting Diego which gave him the red card just before half-time, leaving England with only 10 men.
England ultimately lost the game in a penalty shootout, and the British media and public heavily blamed Beckham for the elimination. Tabloids labeled him “Stupid Boy,” effigies of him were hung in the streets, and he received death threats. The severe, widespread backlash left him clinically depressed, a period of intense public scrutiny that he would later detail in his Netflix documentary.
2002 was also a World Cup of hope, but sadly we were beaten by Brazil in the quarter finals. Brazil would go on to win the 2002 World Cup, so we did loose the a team that ultimately won the tournament that year.
Since then, England have just not been a team that I have looked at as a team that will win the World Cup, don’t get me wrong, with the little interest in domestic football, not having the knowledge of the players that fans and pundits have, I still think England are one of the strongest teams in the world, FIFA have us as the 4th strongest team in the World Cup.
But as much as I wish to see England lift the World Cup trophy, I think our time past with the Golden Generation, a time where Sir Alex Ferguson’s Man Utd had home grown players like Scholes, Beckham and Neville, Liverpool had likes of Owen, the players coming up through the academy’s back then, playing in the Premiership in the late 90s and early 2000s were for me the best England players we have ever had, a team that didn’t just have great players, but an England team that seemed to gel together like they were all on the same club side, like they played together and trained together day in day out.
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