Sky Sports' Johnny Phillips: We’ll remember this time with England, good or bad
Every one of my parents’ generation remembers where they were when they heard the news that US President John F Kennedy had been shot.
It was one of those events that shook the western world. Younger generations have their own JFK moments in more recent history. And it is a reflection of the power of the World Cup for football fans that the big moments in tournaments come with this sort of recollection too.
If England beat Sweden today it will secure a first World Cup semi-final for the country in 28 years – a lifetime first for many of the fans watching today.
There have been other quarter-finals since but none have come with this level of expectation. England carry the favourites tag.
This is magnified by the hoo-ha that has been kicked up about the side of the draw they are in. Memories – good or bad – are about to be made.
Back in 1990 I watched the semi-final round my nan’s house. But here’s a confession – I was wearing a West Germany shirt.
Loads of my mates at school got different countries’ World Cup shirts before the tournament began and I bagged the Germany top. We’d been playing football in the park after school that afternoon and I hadn’t taken it off.
As if the pain of a penalty shoot-out defeat wasn’t enough to bear, the trudge home in the wrong country’s colours was like the running the gauntlet.
By 1998 I was old enough to follow the team in person and got a ticket with some mates for the first group game against Tunisia in Marseille. The next ticket was for the knock-out stage. Only we’d cocked this up by gambling that England would win the group, which they didn’t.
As a result we made our way to Bordeaux to watch group winners Romania face Croatia and then headed off to the fan park by the city’s great river to watch England take on Argentina.
There were plenty of other England fans there too who had all backed the wrong horse in the group stages. Another painful defeat on penalties.
In 2002, I had just come back from a holiday in Indonesia to find the country gripped by World Cup fever ahead of the quarter-final against Brazil. The time difference for the games in Korea and Japan meant a lot of early starts for this World Cup.
I headed off to my old university haunt in Leeds to hook up with some mates who’d found the perfect venue for a 7.30am kick-off. One of the city’s nightclubs, Majestyk, had opened its doors, put up a big screen and was serving beer.
It was great for a while but then Ronaldinho spoilt the party and we were turfed out of the club at 9.30am with another hour and half to wait for ‘opening time’ to drown our sorrows further.
It was back in Europe in 2006 and again I managed to get a ticket for the first group game, this time against Paraguay in Frankfurt.
A largely forgettable game, my abiding memory of that one is goalkeeper Paul Robinson hitting a big screen suspended high above the centre circle with one of his punted clearances.
By the time of the quarter-final, I was back home in London and got some mates around for the match. Of all the knockout defeats, this was perhaps the most frustrating one.
The game against Portugal was low in quality and a decent enough England team failed to rise to the occasion. Cristiano Ronaldo was the pantomime villain on the day, but that missed the point.
By 2010, the golden generation had turned into the Keystone Cops. Fans had still not forgiven the team for its failure to qualify for Euro 2008.
An achingly bad group display saw England draw 0-0 against Algeria with Wayne Rooney taking umbrage with some supporters for having the temerity to boo the dire performance. And then there was goalkeeper Rob Green chucking one in his net in the 1-1 draw with the USA.
By the time of the knockout game against Germany, I was on a Spanish holiday with some Wolves mates watching in an outdoor bar with the sun on our backs. This time there was no frustration in defeat, just apathy.
Fabio Capello’s World Cup campaign had been a shambles, so why bother getting miserable about it?
At least Capello secured a knockout game. Roy Hodgson’s 2014 campaign was so dire that England weren’t even good enough to get knocked out.
The team failed to progress past the group stages, but Hodgson’s off-field tactic of lowering expectations meant there was no great inquest into another World Cup failure.
So what about 2018?
England have made it to a quarter-final again, which is their first since 2006, so that’s a start. But they have yet to convince with their performances.
Ever since qualifying for the knockout stages, experts have been queuing up to tell England’s players they will never have a better chance of reaching the final. That is not helping manage expectations and it is not true, of course.
The draw appears to have been kind, we will only really know by next week, but becoming a better team is the only sound way to improve the chances of reaching any final.
The winners generally have their own house in top order without needing to rely on draws or opposition weaknesses.
And wherever you watch this one, be it a holiday beach bar, a packed pub or just at home with your nan, let’s hope in years to come there is a fond memory to look back on.
