July 4 – It’ll End in Tears! | On This Football Day

July 4 – It’ll End in Tears!

AS Americans celebrate the birth of their nation with fireworks, tailgating and a big dollop of apple pie, we thought we’d bring you a tale of what their former colonial masters do best – losing on to penalties to Germany.

Now excuse us as we flick through our ‘Rough Guide to England Penalty Shoot-out Losses Volumes 1-3′ book’… ah, here we are: July 4th, 1990 in the Stadio delle Alpi in Turin.

The 1990 World Cup went down as one of the dullest tournaments in history, dominated by defensive football and more diving than a Greg Louganis appreciation day, but England still managed to put their fans through the mixer in one of their most dramatic exits.

Optimism had been building in the England camp, as Bobby Robson’s men had battled through to the semi-finals after knocking out the Roger Milla and his plucky Cameroonians thanks to two Gary Lineker penalties.

Here they faced West Germany who were living up to all their stereotypes by efficiently dispatching Holland and then Czechoslovakia in the knock-out stages. This was the biggest clash between the two old enemies since England had thrown away a 2-0 lead in their 1970 World Cup quarter-final.

Central to England’s progression was the emergence on the international scene of midfield pair David Platt and Paul Gascoigne. George Best comparisons were being chucked around ten-a-penny by the English press and the public believed that the young Geordie genius would be the man that ended 24 years of hurt.

The semi-final in Turin was a tense affair, with England on top, but failing to take their chances. After an hour QPR defender Paul Parker went to charge down an Andreas Brehme free-kick, only for the ball to balloon of the pint-size full backs’ derriÃ¨re and loop over the backpedalling Peter Shilton.

The Three Lions went for bust and twenty minutes later they got their reward when Parker, playing like a man who had a score to settle, crossed into Lineker who finished in textbook clinical fashion.

Extra-time came a-calling and this provided us with the defining image of the tournament. Gazza flew into a tackle on Tomas Berthold and was given his second yellow card of the tournament, meaning he would miss the final. Unlike, say, Roy Keane in 1999, Gazza took the news pretty badly, bursting into tears and spending the rest of the game looking like a lost school kid, as Gary Lineker urged Uncle Bobby to ‘have a word’.

The two sides couldn’t be settled in extra-time, so the path to the final became via the penalty spot. Lineker, Peter Beardsley and Platt all converted, but Stuart Pearce saw his kick saved. As is usually the way, the German’s just kept on coming, converting all of theirs, meaning that Chris Waddle, briefly the world’s most expensive player and purveyor of one of the games greatest ever mullets, had to score.

We all know what happened next. If he’d hit it a foot lower it would all have been different, but somewhere in space, Waddle’s spot kick is still rising. West Germany went on to defeat Argentina in the final, thanks, somewhat predictably, to a soft penalty.

See a recap of both the Italia ’90 semis below, with a dose of Nessan Dorma chucked in for good measure and get some more World Cup history thrown your way right here tomorrow.