The twelve days of World Cup: 6 days to go...

In 1990, in Italy, England reached the semi-finals for the first time since 1966. The five tournaments after 1966 proved to be a huge disappointment: Germany, inspired by Der Kaiser and Der Bomber, got their revenge in 1970 and dumped England out in the quarters, whilst in 1974 and 1978 England miserably failed to qualify, before bowing out in the groups in Spain in 1982 before Maradona thumped England out in the quarters in 1986.

1990 was different, and England, albeit far from impressively (drawing with the Netherlands and Ireland and beating Egypt 1-0 in the groups, before needing extra time to defeat both Belgium and Cameroon in the knockout stages), made it to the last four, where they faced old foes West Germany. Extra time came around again, but this time the scores remained level, and it was onwards to England's first ever World Cup shootout, despite the best efforts of a mercurial but tearful Paul Gascoigne.



The shootout started well; both sides despatching their first three penalties, Shilton getting nowhere near any of Germany's three, which were straight from the textbook. Pearce missed, before Olaf Thon despatched another textbook penalty, heaping the pressure on the mulleted Chris Waddle, who was to tragically buckle under said pressure and balloon the decisive penalty, handing Germany the final place where they would defeated Argentina 1-0 through an Andreas Brehme goal from, you guessed it, the penalty spot.

England's penalty defeat set a heartbreaking precedent which has been kept up in major tournaments ever since. Having failed to qualify for Euro 92 and USA 94, England then went out on penalties in Euro 96 and 04, and World Cups 98 and 06. Since 1996, England have gone out of 66% of tournaments on penalties. Odds for the same this time?

TOMORROW: One of the great historic footballing nations ends a decades-long hoodoo to seal their third triumph...