It's 9 years to the day since....

[gertcha EFM]

....this happenend.

 

 

How good was that ?

[YELLOW]

Brilliant! And we beat the Dutch three days later.

 

It's three years ago today we beat the Danes 3-0 in the second round of the World Cup.

[Electric ~soul~]

...and we won neither trophy.

 

It's about time the people of this country stopped getting so glassy-eyed about our miserable failures, which 1996 and 2002 undoubtedly were.

 

In fact, since (West Ham) winning the World Cup in 1966, the only performance we can be even the slightest bit proud of is Italy 1990.

 

Euro 96, my dick.

[gertcha EFM]

Totally disagree about 96. We lost on penalties to the eventual winners and had enough chances to win the semi, we were just very unlucky on the day. (although we did have a fair bit of luck against Spain in the quarter final.)

 

In what way were we better in 1990 ? There was no demolition of a decent Dutch side, and whilst we should always beat the Jocks, we still had to be professional about it, as they were well up for that one.

In 1990, we were lucky to get through the group stage, and then lucky with the draw in playing Belgium and Cameroon (both of whom we only just beat).

[Electric ~soul~]

Sorry to give you guys a dose of reality while you're enjoying your misty-eyed reminiscing, but...

 

[Electric ~soul~]

Quote:

gertcha EFM said:
Totally disagree about 96. We lost on penalties to the eventual winners and had enough chances to win the semi, we were just very unlucky on the day.

So, by this theory, you're proud of Man Utd's achievements in last season's FA Cup Final??

[gertcha EFM]

Yeah I am actually. They were the better team, lost on penalties but that is football. They pissed all over a supposedly excellent Arsenal side for 120 mins, and for that I was proud.

[gertcha EFM]

So by your theory do you think beating Cameroon 3-2 thanks to two penalties is better than pissing all over Holland and beating them 4-1 ?

[Electric ~soul~]

Quote:

gertcha EFM said:
In what way were we better in 1990 ? There was no demolition of a decent Dutch side, and whilst we should always beat the Jocks, we still had to be professional about it, as they were well up for that one.

In 1990, we were lucky to get through the group stage, and then lucky with the draw in playing Belgium and Cameroon (both of whom we only just beat).

No, there was no demolition of the Dutch, but at the same time, Holland were European Champions with Gullit, Van Basten and Rikjaard in the side, and we did bloody well to hold them to a goalless draw - a result which effectively saw us qualify for the next stages.

We were very unfancied in 1990, we were on foreign soil, as opposed to Euro 96 when we were hosting.

To reach the Semi-Finals in a 24-team competition abroad is a much better performance than reaching the semi-finals in a 16-team tournament at home.

Out of five matches in 1996, we only won TWO. How can you be proud of a tournament where we only won two matches? We couldn't even beat Switzerland, for God's sake!!

At least in 1990 our three draws came against Jack Charlton's very solid Irish side, Holland - the European Champions, and Germany - the eventual winners.

Never claimed that 1990 was a great performance - but it was a hell of a lot better than 1996.

[Electric ~soul~]

Quote:

gertcha EFM said:
So by your theory do you think beating Cameroon 3-2 thanks to two penalties is better than pissing all over Holland and beating them 4-1 ?

4-1 against the Dutch was a great stand-alone result mate, but you can't judge our whole Euro 96 performance by it.

Gertcha - I will happily sit through the 210 minutes of the Switzerland and Spain games with you when you come over next week!!

[SteveP]

I remember the Spain game and thought we got lucky on that. I think I have a great attachment with Euro 96, for me I'd just finished A levels and had about 3/4 months off and it was a fantastic summer, which does give you the 'rose tinted' glasses effect.

 

But that Holland game was just fantastic, beating Scotland is always a pleasurable thing and back then they were actually a decnt team too. But it does not really match getting to the semi finals in Italia 90.

[gertcha EFM]

I still disagree. The 4-1 win against Holland was one of England's best performances for a long time, better than anything in 1990. For that performance alone we can be proud.

 

It pisses me off that we can't ever beat Ireland but people think that it is a good result to get a draw against them.

 

As I said, with the draw we had in 1990, not reaching the semis would have been a disaster.

 

Fair point about home advantage, but playing away from home didn't seem to bother Germany, so why should it bother us ?

[gertcha EFM]

Quote:

Zealster ~soul~ said:

Quote:

gertcha EFM said:
So by your theory do you think beating Cameroon 3-2 thanks to two penalties is better than pissing all over Holland and beating them 4-1 ?

4-1 against the Dutch was a great stand-alone result mate, but you can't judge our whole Euro 96 performance by it.

Gertcha - I will happily sit through the 210 minutes of the Switzerland and Spain games with you when you come over next week!!

Opening game of a tournament, always going to be tough. Didn't Cameroon beat Argentina in 1990, and Sengal did ok against France in 2002.
As for the Spain game, home advantage put us under much more pressure, so it was a professional display.

[Electric ~soul~]

Quote:

SteveP said:
I remember the Spain game and thought we got lucky on that. I think I have a great attachment with Euro 96, for me I'd just finished A levels and had about 3/4 months off and it was a fantastic summer, which does give you the 'rose tinted' glasses effect.

I agree with that totally, Steve, and I've always felt like that about Euro 96 too. 1996 was a golden summer, I'd just moved to Harpenden, Britpop was at its peak, Oasis at Knebworth, having a great time with my current bird... and Euro 96 was all part of that feel-good time.

But as a tournament alone, it simply wasn't that impressive.

Yes, Gertcha - I hear you about the 4-1 result, and I agree it was probably one of our best performances of my lifetime, but you simply cannot claim the tournament was superb on the back of that one result.

As a Spurs fan, we beat Liverpool 2-1 at Anfield in the Quarters of the 1995 FA Cup - probably one of the best FA Cup results of my lifetime - but the tournament was an ultimate failure as we crashed out in the Semis.

[Electric ~soul~]

I've said this before, but I will say it again...

 

Our problem as 'Brits' is that we're too happy to pat our sporting losers on the back and say how proud we are of them.

 

"Ah... well done Tiger Tim. You may have choked your semi-final against Goran, but hey, it's the taking part that counts and you did ever so well to get there, didn't you?"

 

"Well lads, you've lost to Germany for the umpteenth time of penalties, but bravo chaps"

 

The Germans, or the Aussies simply don't do this - and that is why they only breed Winners.

[YELLOW]

Quote:

Zealster ~soul~ said:

Quote:

SteveP said:
I remember the Spain game and thought we got lucky on that. I think I have a great attachment with Euro 96, for me I'd just finished A levels and had about 3/4 months off and it was a fantastic summer, which does give you the 'rose tinted' glasses effect.

But as a tournament alone, it simply wasn't that impressive.

The tournament on a whole wasn't that impressive. I watched nearly every game of that tournament and some of the matches were absolutely dire including that England/Spain match.

Euro 2000 and Euro 2004 were vfar more interesting.

[Electric ~soul~]

I meant that England's tournament in 1996 wasn't that impressive.

[YELLOW]

Yep that as well but alot of people say how good that tournament was when quite frankly it was not particularly memorable. The England games against Switzerland and Spain were dreadful, appalling stuff.

 

Certainly Spain we should have lost as they had two perfectly good goals ruled out.

[Electric ~soul~]

I'm not even talking about who should have won or lost Yellow, as that's irrelevant. I'm just saying that it was, simply, an average tournament for England.

 

You need to win probably five matches to win the European Championships. (Six matches in all, but you can afford to lose one in the Group stages)

 

In 1996, we played five matches, and won only two. (Three if you count the penalty win against Spain, but by the same token, you then have to count the Semi-Final as a defeat)

 

Germany, the tournament winners, won FIVE of their six matches.

 

They had group wins over eventual runners-up Czech Republic (2-0) and Russian (3-0) whilst they had a goalless draw with World Cup runners-up Italy.

 

They then beat Croatia 2-1 in the Quarters, us on penalties, and won the final against the Czechs.

 

That a performance their fans have a right to be proud of.

 

I would say that the Czech fans also have a right to be proud of finishing as runners-up. They had a tremendous win against Italy in the group stage, before knocking out both Portugal and France in the latter rounds.

 

By comparison, we had one excellent match against the Dutch, and our only other win was against a team that can't even beat the Faroe Isles!!

[EFM The Firm, The Voice]

I never saw the 4-1 Holland game and I've still never seen it.

I was doing training at Channel 10 at the time and couldn't get out of it.

I saw all the other games though, pre-liberation <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />