You’ll never get a better chance. Now don’t blow it like we did!
Chris Waddle’s biggest regret isn’t that missed penalty in 1990 — it’s England’s failure to win the trophy
CHRIS WADDLE is sitting at a small table in the media centre in the lee of the Samara Arena. For the first time i n 28 years, England are in a World Cup semi-final. Waddle is thinking back to that day in July 1990 in Turin when this country’s football boom was born and he and his team-mates played out one of the most memorable and heartbreaking games in England’s history.
Waddle is still filled with regrets about that semi-final against West Germany, not because it was his penalty kick that soared over the bar at the end of the shoot-out and administered the coup-de-grace to England’s hopes of emulating the heroes of 1966, but because he feels he and his t eam- mates l et an opportunity slip. They came so close to fulfilling the dream of every footballer and it fell from their grasp at the last.
It is why, as Gareth Southgate’s young England team prepare to ride a wave of public euphoria into their own semi-final in Moscow on Wednesday, Waddle is adamant that they must ignore all the talk of how they will be even better placed to win major tournaments two or four years down the line. They have youth and promise but football has taught Waddle that their chance is now and that they have to seize it.
‘I don’t think we’ll get a better opportunity to win the World Cup than this,’ Waddle, now a respected analyst for BBC Radio 5 Live, said.
‘England’s the best country in the world for talking about what we’ll do in two years’ time. We have been saying it now for the last three World Cups. We are always going to have this young squad in two years time. It doesn’t happen.
‘Football’s today. You play that game as if it is your last game and you go out and try and win it.
‘I was glad when Harry Kane said before the tournament that we were coming here to win it. I’ve never believed you should go to a World Cup to learn. When you go to a tournament and you are picked in the England 23, you are playing in the Premier League and the Champions League, there is no excuse to say you are learning. We have got to be positive and stick our chests out and believe we can win it.
‘It is a regret for me that we got so close to winning it in 1990 and we couldn’t quite do it. We were good enough to win it. We showed a lot of people we weren’t just a kick-and-rush 4-4-2 team. We changed to three at the back and played some great football. Our semi-final midfield was David Platt, me and Gazza. If somebody had said before the tournament that that would be our midfield three, everybody would have laughed. They would have said: “You can’t play them, they can’t defend.”
‘The great thing from that tournament for me was how we changed the idea that England was all about kick and rush. During that tournament, a bit like with this England team now, people watched us and thought: “These can play.” But when World Cups come around and you start to think of yours, you do look back and think of what might have been.
‘This team is not going to get a better chance of getting to the final or winning it. Germany, Spain, Portugal and Brazil have all gone out. They will all get new players in four years from now. They will be strong again. These teams don’t sit back and think it will be 10 or 20 years until they get another chance. They will be working on what they did wrong and fixing it.’
England’s team in 1990, managed by Sir Bobby Robson, were full of attacking talent with that midfield supplemented up front by Gary Lineker and Peter Beardsley, who complemented each other so beautifully. Waddle, 57, was in his prime, a wonderful wide player, full of trickery and grace, a brilliant dribbler and a fine crosser of the ball.
He was in the midst of winning three successive French titles with Marseille, then one of the most powerful sides in Europe, and he went into Italia 90 full of confidence in his own ability. Like this England team, though, the thought that their side might be capable of something special took time to dawn.
‘I knew we had a good side,’ Waddle said. ‘You look at the team on paper and you think there are not many better teams than us. We had a great camaraderie. With Gazza around and people like that, we had a good thing going.
‘Confidence spread. What changed it for us was when we drew with Holland in the second group game. They had battered us two years earlier in the Euros. We thought they were good in 1988. Then we drew 0-0 with them and we could have won and we thought if they were one of the favourites for the World Cup, we had a chance.
‘ We beat Egypt and then the knockouts is when it really starts. Belgium in the second round was a hard game but we got through it and the same with Cameroon in the quarters. Then we got to Germany and it was wow, we were so close to the final.
‘We looked at the other side of the draw and Argentina won their semi- final the night before we played. They were a good side but beatable. After we lost to Germany, when you think about it when you get home and watch the game again, we could easily have won. We hit the post. They went on to be world champions again. It is an opportunity missed.’
His disappointment about his own missed penalty pales by comparison to the regret he feels about the team’s failure to reach the final and win the tournament. He refused to let the personal setback define him. He won more titles with Marseille, he won the Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year Award in 1993 when he was with Sheffield Wednesday and hi s love of the game never waned.
‘At first it was hard to get over the penalty,’ Waddle said. ‘I thought people would go “yap yap” about it wherever you go. You have got to live with it. If you look at the pl ayers who missed pens in tournaments — me, Stuart Pearce and Gareth Southgate are the three they come up with first — we all did OK.
‘ I went back to England and thought: “I could hide and get out of the way or I could try and get better.” I won the league three years running with Marseille, I won the Footballer of the Year award. I refused to let it affect me. Pearcey went on to better things, Gareth did. Look at him now. It’s a test of character. You get a bit fed up with it rather than it getting you down. I missed. I can’t turn the clock back. There have been better players t han me, Gareth and Pearcey who have missed.
‘I can’t imagine people going up to Roberto Baggio and talking to him about the one he missed in 1994. Anyway, there was no way it was going to beat me.’
While working in Russia for the BBC, Waddle has taken great pleasure from seeing the way England’s young players are flourishing under Southgate’s management and the style of football they are playing.
‘It’s refreshing the way they are playing it out from the back,’ he said. ‘Gareth has given them their heads. John Barnes and I used to get so frustrated playing for England. You felt you were always chasing the ball and you were doing a lot of legwork in defence. People wanted you to take people on in the final third but you hardly got in the final third because of the system. England would have been better off playing grafters rather than flair.
‘People say now England are a nice side that wants to play football. They’re not saying they’re physical and strong or the way they work hard. We have turned that round.
‘I look at what we have today and I think: “I’d love to play in that team.”’
I look at what England have today and I think, I’d love to play in that team!
ADMIRER: Chris Waddle today