Today I'm going back 26 years to 1996 and the European Championships held in England that summer. As hosts, England played all their games at the old Wembley although that wasn't guaranteed if they had finished second in their Group. The attendance that afternoon was 75,440 and the atmosphere generated by the crowd was probably as good as I have ever known it, certainly at Wembley. "Three Lions on a Shirt" was our anthem and the atmosphere was both expectant and electric. It was England's 725th full International match ever and they didn't come much bigger than this!
The programme was another one of those covering more than one match. In this case it covered both England's Quarter-Final against Spain and the France against Holland game played at Anfield in Liverpool later that same day, so it was two for the £4 price of one!
England had emerged from the Group Stage as winners of Group A following a slow start with a 1-1 draw with Switzerland before narrowly beating Scotland 2-1 and then thumping the Dutch 4-1. Spain meanwhile had come second in Group B behind France following two 1-1 draws against Bulgaria and France respectively and then a late but decisive 2-1 victory over Romania.
I think that if there is one photograph capturing a single split second of a game that I attended that sums up why I follow football and have spent so much of my life doing so, it would come from this game. Sure, the game ended as a nil-nil draw but then it came to penalties. I had had the devastating experience of watching England lose on penalties at the 1990 World Cup Semi-Final and, when Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle missed their spot kicks, I also missed out on probably my biggest ever chance to watch England playing in a World Cup Final. Here we were six years later with England in another winner-takes-all shootout. I was however absolutely astonished when Stuart Pearce stepped up once again to take England's third spot kick and I remember thinking to myself that he had huge "cojones" as the Spanish would say (translation: courage!). Pearce wasn't going to miss this time around and, after sweeping the ball home, he turned around, his face contorted with emotion and passion having exorcised the demons of Turin. That moment! That moment will stay with me forever.
Spain, unbeaten in their previous 19 games could count themselves very unlucky. During normal time, they had the ball in the back of the England net twice but both times had the goal ruled out for offside. They also had a decent penalty shout which the referee considered to be a dive and brandished a yellow card when I wasn't so sure. It remained 0-0 however and we went into extra time knowing that a single "Golden Goal" would immediately win the match. The thing about the old Golden Goal rule was that it tended to make the participants too cautious and here, as in many other games, no Golden Goal arrived and we came down to that penalty shootout after a goalless 120 minutes. Today, it's generally accepted that England have a poor record when it comes to penalties. However, at the time of the shootout against Spain, it was only our second attempt at penalties following that infamous World Cup Semi-Final in 1990 and it is only in more recent times that England have developed a problem with such shootouts. Up to date England have faced eleven shootouts and won only three of them.
Against Spain, England didn't even need all of their five penalties. Shearer took and scored the first and then Hierro hit the crossbar with Spain's first kick. Advantage England! The next five penalties were all scored with England's scorers being David Platt, Stuart Pearce (see above) and Paul Gascoigne to make it 4-2. Spain had to score their fourth penalty to prolong the contest but the effort by Miguel Angel Nadal (uncle of Rafael Nadal, the tennis professional) was saved by David Seaman and England were into the Semi-Finals!
Sadly, there was heartache to come for England in that Semi-Final with another draw, extra time and a penalty shootout, this time against Germany. England had come so close to reaching the Final where they would have been strong favourites to beat the Czech Republic. Instead the Germans were triumphant and with a Golden Goal too!
CRB Match No. 1047
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