The Greatest Euro Matches: England-Germany (1996)

The English were excited to host the 1996 European Championship 30 years after hosting the World Cup. Back then they had taken the title, so now hope were high that England had the chance of a repeat. The official anthem of the English national team was a song called “Football's coming home”, underlining the high expectations to the English side.
England had a mixed record in the 1990s. After reaching the semi-final of the 1990 World Cup, they had been eliminated in the first round of Euro 1992 and had failed to qualify for the 1994 World Cup in the USA. After such a debacle Terry Venables had taken over as manager. England's layers were all drawn from the English league, with the exception of Paul Ince, from Inter Milan, and the controversial and super-talented Paul Gascoigne, who at the time was playing in Glasgow Rangers. Gascoigne's talent had brought him to many clubs, but his controversial personality and heavy drinking had caused him much criticism. In the second game of the tournament he scored a memorable goal against Scotland, and celebrated it by pretending to be drinking, in order to get back at his many critics.
The English side was captained by Arsenal's experienced defender Tony Adams, and with Nottingham Forest's Stuart Pearce and Aston Villa's Neville Southgate in defense, in front of Arsenal's David Seaman in goal. Gaiscoigne, Paul Ince, Arsenal's veteran David Platt and Liverpool's Steve McManaman made for a qualified midfield, Tottenham's Teddy Sheringham and Blackburn's Alan Shearer were Venable's preferences up front.
England opened the tournament with a disappointing 1-1 draw with Switzerland, but a 2-0 win against Scotland and a 4-1 trashing of the mighty Netherlands returned optimism to the English. In the quarterfinals England had to resort to a home referee (Spain had one clear penalty call and two goals disallowed for offside, one of them controversially) and penalty kicks to defeat Spain.
The echoes of history were all over when it became clear that England would be facing their eternal arch-rivals of Germany in the semi-final at Wembley, same place where they had defeated them in the World Cup final of 1966.
After winning the 1990 World Cup Germany had been full of confidence, if not to say arrogance, about the prospects for German dominance in the football world. But this had soon been shattered when they sensationally lost the Euro 1992 final to Denmark, and in the 1994 World Cup Germany had been eliminated by a strong Bulgarian side in the quarterfinals. For the qualification for this European Championship they had gotten some revenge as they had won their group ahead of Bulgaria.
 Berti Vogts continued to coach a team captained by the Bayern Munich striker Jurgen Klinsmann. The veteran Lothar Matthaus had not been called up due to feuding with Vogts, but the team still had a wide base of experienced players coming mostly from the two dominant German clubs Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund. Matthias Sammer from Borussia Dortmund had taken over the role of the dominant midfield-player alongside Andreas Moller, also from Dortmund, and the veteran Thomas Hassler from Karlsruher SC. Bayern Munich's Mehmet Scholl, Christian Ziege and Mario Bassler complemented a strong midfield. In defense there were solid veterans like Borussia Dortmund's Jurgen Kohler and Stefan Reuter, as well as Bayern Munich's Thomas Helmer. Klinsmann was the undisputed striker, other choices were Udinese's Oliver Bierhoff, Besiktas Stefan Kuntz and Stuttgart's Fredi Bobic.
Surely Germany entered the tournament as title contenders, but doubt remained about the team's cohesion. But as had been seen in previous tournaments in history, German teams seemed to thrive more in the face of internal disagreement. In the first round of the tournament they had been in a difficult group with the Czech Republic, Russia and Italy. After defeating the first two countries 2-0 and 3-0 respectively, 0-0 against Italy was enough to put them in the quarterfinals, where they defeated Croatia 2-1. The Germans were surely as excited about the semi-final against England as the English were, hoping to get revenge for the defeat of 1966, which they felt very much had come thanks to an illegal goal.
The match was only three minutes on before the locals erupted in cheers. Shortly after Andreas Kopke had made a good save on a Paul Ince shot, Allan Shearer scored after Darren Anderton had flicked a corner kick at the first post, to leave Shearer to head the ball in. But Germany was quick to react and in the 16th minute Andreas Moller played Thomas Helmer in the English area and his flat cross was reached first by Stefan Kuntz, who pushed the ball into 1-1.
England seemed to want the victory more and were denied a couple of good chances, even though both teams played with tactical discipline in the second half. The match ended 1-1 and would have to go into and extra time with a new “golden goal” rule where first goal would win the match. England, already fearful of a dreadful history of penalty shootouts tried pressing the Germans but without results. Still, Stefan Kuntz managed to score for Germany on a strong header after a corner-kick, but the goal was disallowed for an apparent foul in the area by an England-friendly referee.
But the match ended 1-1 and once again penalty kicks would be decisive. All England's memories were surely in 1990, when they lost a legendary World Cup semifinal by penalty kicks to the later World Champions of West Germany.
History repeated itself, but it was an agonizing penalty shootout. Both teams scored on their first five shots, until Gareth Southgate's weak sixth shot was saved by Kopke, and Andreas Moller scored on the following shot to put Germany in the final.
Germany went on to win the final in Wembley agains the Czech Republic, get a small revenge for the famous 1966 World Cup defeat in that same stadium. For the English it was a bitter defeat to their arch-rivals, losing for yet another semifinal. Gary Lineker's famous quote just rang more true to English fans: "Football is a simple game; 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win”.

London, 26/6/1996 Wembley Stadium 
Attendance: 75,862 
Referee: Sandor Puhl, Hungary 

England-Germany 1-1 
Penalty Kicks: England-Germany 5-6 


England: David Seaman; Stuart Pearce, Paul Ince, Tony Adams (c), Gareth Southgate, David Platt, Paul Gascoigne, Alan Shearer, Teddy Sheringham, Darren Anderton, Steven McManaman. Coach: Terry Venables
Germany: Andreas Kopke; Stefan Reuter, Steffen Freund (Thomas Strunz, 118), Thomas Helmer (Marco Bode, 110), Matthias Sammer, Andreas Moller (c), Mehmet Scholl (Thomas Hassler, 77), Steffan Kuntz, Markus Babbel, Christian Ziege, Dieter Elits. Coach: Berti Vogts 

Goals:
1-0 Alan Shearer (3) 
1-1 Stefan Kuntz (16) 

Penalty Kicks:
1-0 Alan Shearer 
1-1 Thomas Hassler 
2-1 David Platt 
2-2 Thomas Strunz 
3-2 Stuart Pearce 
3-3 Stefan Reuter 
4-3 Paul Gascoigne 
4-4 Christian Ziege 
5-4 Teddy Sheringham 
5-5 Stefan Kuntz 
Gareth Southgate missed for England 
5-6 Andreas Moller

Another comment on Brazil

The 1-7 debacle of Brazil against Germany will be discussed in and out for a long time. I still find it hard to believe: yes, Brazil were looking weak; yes, Brazil have not played beautiful football for many years; yes, many teams have done more to develop the game for a long time; yes, Germany are strong...

But all these things do not explain the pounding they received.

The legendary Zico made a strong comment on the match: http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/jul/09/brazil-germany-zico

Implicit in this is a certain arrogance by Brazilians, but also the immense pressure they put the players under. Players who play for great clubs in the best leagues, but who were drugged with the adrenaline of nationalism and expectations, and could not focus on what they were there for.

In 1974 Brazil lost to the Netherlands and concluded that they needed to change their game, make it more "European", physical and result-oriented. This did lead to results. But the problem is that the 1994 and 2002 World Cup titles led Brazil to forget their footballing roots. Their identity should not just be about winning, but also about playing with the beauty and joy that Brazilians have in life.

Other great football powers have a clear idea of what they are and what they want to be. Brazil has lost that.

On and off the pitch Brazil is changing. It is such a wonderful country with such wonderful people, and I think they will find their way back, even though it will take some soul-searching and link back to their roots, just like Zico says in the article.

Forca Brazil!

Day 28 of the World Cup: Copenhagen, Denmark

Denmark did not qualify to the World Cup, but this has not dented world cup fever in this small Scandinavian country. In fact, it is nice to see the world cup with fans without a dog in the fight, who nevertheless understand the passion and enjoy to discuss the game.

On top of all this, it was a lovely sunny day in Copenhagen; one of those days where the streets are full of music, beer drinking, beautiful women and cheerful crowds. No city in the world is as wonderful as Copenhagen on a day like yesterday. It was the perfect build-up for the semi-final.

I must admit that after yesterday's Brazilian debacle (it is still hard to believe) I was not optimistic regarding Argentina's prospects in the semifinal against the Dutch. The Argentines have given a lot of space and have taken pace out of their matches. It seemed to me that Europe would totally conquer South America.

So that is why I decided to play it safe and not wear my Argentina shirt (four years ago I wore it for the Argentina-Germany quarterfinal in a bar full of Germans in Brussels, and that was not a good experience).

After the great day I went with a group of friends to watch the match at a beautiful area by the harbor of the city called Islands Brygge. This is where Danish TV, Danmarks Radio (DR), has set up a World Cup fan area with giant screens and beer sales. It is from there that the DR football pundits, led by the former player Peter Moller, comment on the matches.

This has also, during the tournament, become the place to watch matches with fans of all nationalities coming through Copenhagen. Yesterday was no exception with a large crowd of orange Dutchmen and another large crowd of noisy and partying Argentines, who sang and screamed their way through the match. I could not help to get more and more smitten by their passion, and was fully immersed in the match as it progressed.

The Dutch have been strange in this tournament. After their flying start against the Spanish World Champions, they became steadily worse throughout the tournament: it was as if the fear of losing won the farther they got, playing more defensively and lacking creativity in attack. We saw it in their controversial last minute win over Mexico and their disappointing 0-0 with the Costa Ricans, where they continuously ran into off-sides.

Against Argentina they did not seem to have improved, although a strong Argentine defense, that has grown throughout the tournament, must be credited. Javier Mascherano played a fantastic match as holding midfielder, and hopefully Barcelona is watching.

Argentina were indeed the better team, creating the few chances of a very tactical match. In the end it was the first 0-0 semi-final in World Cup history (we have had two historic semi-finals!), and penalty kicks were perhaps predictable. 

Argentina have always been good at penalties, and this time looked as good as every other, with Sergio Romerio saving two penalties. The Monaco keeper has been one of the stars of Argentina in this tournament, and hopefully he will find a new club and get more games after the tournament.

Yes, Argentina play boring, but this is not equal to playing badly. Rather it means that the Argentines do not risk much. And when their (for some) fearsome offensive power is marked closely, as it has been throughout the tournament, they look boring. 

But they are in the World Cup final; without playing violently, without referee help, without controversy. It has all been about hard work, concentration and consistency for Argentina. Germany are favorites after their trashing of Brazil. But this is not to say Argentina are without chances, and that Germany should underestimate them. Argentina will work hard and fight to the last drop to get the title in Brazil.

And I will be wearing my Argentina shirt for the final.