This article is taken from the June 2026 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Find our subscription offers here.
The first World Cup I properly remember was in 1978. But for all that happened on the pitch in Argentina — not least the obvious fix that allowed the home side to beat Peru 6-0, when they needed to win by at least four goals to reach the final — it was the aftermath of that tournament that lives most in my memory.
As a Spurs fan, the joint signing on 10 July 1978 of the Argentinians Osvaldo Ardiles and Ricardo Villa felt out of this world. We’re now so used to foreign players in the Premier League and to seeing the World Cup as a platform for them to show why they should be signed, that it’s difficult to remember just how sensational a moment it was when Spurs manager Keith Burkinshaw revealed that joint £750,000 transfer. Foreign players in England were a rarity — and foreign superstars who had just won the World Cup non-existent.
Forty-eight years later and no World Cup moment has really come close to that feeling for me. Which is more evidence of my firm belief that most football fans don’t actually care that much about the national team.
Of course, we like it when we do well, and during a tournament we swing in behind the team. Even when, as with the Scots in that same 1978 World Cup, it reaches ludicrous levels of delusion. For much of the run-up to the finals in Argentina, it seemed that Scottish manager Ally MacLeod along with most of Scotland really thought they might bring the World Cup trophy to Glasgow. They lost in the group stage.
But I don’t know a single fan who would rather see England win a tournament than their club win the league (or indeed a trophy of any kind). Which is probably why most of my lasting World Cup memories have nothing to do with England.
The last World Cup to have been staged in the US, in 1994, is remembered not least for what happened off the field — most tragically the murder of Colombia’s Andrés Escobar. Having scored an own goal against the USA, his team went out. Escobar was shot dead outside a bar in Medellín.
That tournament also saw Diego Maradona expelled and then suspended for 15 months after testing positive for a cocktail of five separate ephedrine-related substances. The defining image of the entire month was of him being led away by a female FIFA official. That and — ludicrously — Diana Ross missing her “penalty” in the opening ceremony.
Germany 2006 was most memorable for Zinedine Zidane’s final act as a professional footballer, headbutting Marco Materazzi in the chest and being sent off. France then lost on penalties. Although neither player has confirmed what was said, it seems that when Zidane offered him his shirt, the Italian replied along the lines of: “I’d prefer your whore sister.” Zidane says now that he doesn’t regret headbutting Materazzi.
The most surreal 45 minutes of World Cup football — of football more widely — has to be the first half of the Germany v Brazil semi-final in 2014 in Brazil. Germany were 5-0 up within half an hour, with four goals in one six-minute period. Brazil barely left their own half and had no shots on target. The match ended 7-1 and the subsequent rioting in the stands led to a special forces squad entering the stadium.
The Qatar tournament in 2022 shamed football — although all it really did was confirm that FIFA is and will always be fundamentally corrupt and soulless. But — a rarity — it actually had a final to remember, with Lionel Messi finally leaving a World Cup with a winner’s medal after a pulsating draw against France and Argentina winning on penalties.
As for England memories … The most iconic does not even involve an England player, Maradona’s 1986 Hand of God goal in Mexico when the greatest player of all time punched the ball into the net. Four minutes later Maradona followed one of the most cynical goals with one of the greatest, dribbling from inside his own half past several England players before scoring.
Four years later at Italia 90, an emblematic England moment: Paul Gascoigne’s tears after being booked in the semi-final, realising that if England reached the final he would be banned. How on-point for a team which has always been about glorious and, even more, not-so-glorious losses to have a player bursting into tears as a defining tournament memory.
2006 was one of the nadirs of England’s so-called “golden generation” — a group of players who never came close to fulfilling their potential. Most coverage seemed to focus on the WAGs at England’s Baden-Baden base. England went out to Portugal in the quarter-finals on penalties, following Wayne Rooney’s red card for stamping on Carvalho and the subsequent wink from Ronaldo — his Manchester United teammate — to the Portugal bench.
South Africa in 2010 saw Frank Lampard’s goal that wasn’t. Despite the ball bouncing at least a yard over the German goal line and everyone in the stand and watching on TV seeing a clear goal, the one man who didn’t see it was the referee. England were 2-1 behind and would have equalised but went on to lose 4-1 and depart the tournament. That goal that wasn’t led FIFA to use the goal-line technology that already existed.
I’m sure that if England were serial tournament winners, this list would be less jaundiced. But who wants motherhood and apple pie when you can be jaded?
