England national football team

• 1. Introduction

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  England lost 7-1 to Hungary in Budapest on the 23rd of May 1954, and the scoreline still stands as the heaviest defeat the England men's national football team has ever suffered. Afterwards, a bewildered Syd Owen said, "it was like playing men from outer space".

  The Football Association, the governing body of the game in England, controls the team. It is affiliated with UEFA and answers to FIFA. England compete in the three big tournaments open to European nations: the World Cup, the European Championship and the Nations League. The squad trains at St George's Park in Burton upon Trent.

  That night in Budapest raises a larger puzzle. How did a side with such deep roots in the sport end up with a record so full of heartbreak? Who chose the players, and who has been trusted to lead them? What do the lions on the shirt mean, and which opponents do the supporters truly want to beat? The answers begin with a match that had to be played twice.

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• 2. A Match Played Twice

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  On the 5th of March 1870, the Football Association organised a representative match between England and Scotland. It does not count as the first official international. That honour goes to the return game on the 30th of November 1872 at Hamilton Crescent in Scotland. Representatives of Scottish clubs arranged it, and each side was selected and run independently instead of by one shared association.

  For roughly the next 40 years, England played only the other three Home Nations: Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Their meetings formed the British Home Championship.

  England joined FIFA in 1906. Their first games against countries outside the Home Nations came on a tour of Central Europe in 1908. The relationship with FIFA later soured, and England left in 1928. They did not return until 1946, which kept them out of the World Cup until 1950.

  The first home defeat to a foreign side came on the 21st of September 1949, a 2-0 loss to Ireland at Goodison Park. The World Cup debut in 1950 went worse. The United States won 1-0, England failed to get past the first round, and the result is counted among the most embarrassing in the team's history.

  In 1953, Hungary beat England 6-3, only the second defeat by a foreign team at Wembley. At the 1954 World Cup, England reached the quarter-finals for the first time. There, the reigning champions Uruguay beat them 4-2.

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• 3. The Ramsey Years

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  Walter Winterbottom was named England's first full-time manager in 1946, yet a committee still picked the team. He was only 33 when he took the job, the youngest ever, and his 139 matches in charge remain the most by any manager. The committee's grip ended in 1963, when Alf Ramsey took over.

  The 1966 World Cup was held in England, and Ramsey's team won it. The final against West Germany finished 4-2 after extra time, with Geoff Hurst scoring a hat-trick. It is England's first and only World Cup title.

  That single triumph carries unusual footnotes. England became one of eight nations to have won the tournament. They are the only winner representing a country that is not sovereign. They are also the only team to have won the World Cup at senior level without ever winning their own continental title.

  At the 1968 European Championship, England reached the semi-finals for the first time. Yugoslavia eliminated them, and England finished third. In 1970, they travelled to Mexico without needing to qualify, as reigning champions. They reached the quarter-finals against West Germany and led 2-0, but lost 3-2 after extra time.

  Missing out on the 1972 European Championship and the 1974 World Cup then cost Ramsey his job, because the FA dismissed him. Joe Mercer took temporary charge for a spell of seven matches while the search for a successor went on.

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• 4. The Revolving Chair

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  Don Revie, appointed permanently in 1974, presided over failure to qualify for either Euro 1976 or the 1978 World Cup. He resigned in 1977. Ron Greenwood replaced him and results improved. England qualified for Euro 1980 without losing a game, yet went out in the group stage. At the 1982 World Cup in Spain they lost no match, but a second group stage ended their run.

  Bobby Robson held the job from 1982 to 1990. England missed Euro 1984, then reached the quarter-finals of the 1986 World Cup, where Gary Lineker finished as top scorer with six goals. At Euro 1988 the team lost every match.

  Italy in 1990 changed the mood. England finished fourth, their second-best World Cup result. The semi-final against West Germany ended 1-1 after extra time, then 3-4 in England's first penalty shoot-out. The third-place match against Italy was lost too, yet the players received bronze medals identical to the Italians'. Because the run beat expectations and the defeat felt so narrow, thousands of people lined the streets for an open-top bus parade.

  Four managers followed Robson in the 1990s, each staying briefly. Graham Taylor's England won no matches at Euro 1992. They drew with eventual winners Denmark and with France, then lost to host nation Sweden. After a controversial game against the Netherlands in Rotterdam, England failed to reach the 1994 World Cup, and Taylor resigned. Newspapers had criticised his tactics and selections throughout.

  Terry Venables led the side between 1994 and 1996. England hosted Euro 96 and equalled their best European result by reaching the semi-finals, as in 1968. Another penalty shoot-out loss to Germany ended the run. Alan Shearer was the tournament's top scorer with five goals.

  That summer, "Three Lions" by Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds became the anthem of the terraces. It popularised the chant "it's coming home". Venables had announced he would leave after the tournament, because of investigations into his personal financial affairs and coming court cases. The FA stressed that he was coach, not manager.

  Glenn Hoddle took England to the 1998 World Cup, where they went out in the second round on penalties after a 2-2 draw with Argentina. In February 1999, the FA sacked him over remarks about disabled people that he made to a newspaper. Howard Wilkinson covered two matches as caretaker. Kevin Keegan then took the job, led England out of the group stage exit at Euro 2000, and resigned unexpectedly soon afterwards.

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• 5. Foreign Hands

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  After Peter Taylor looked after a single match, Sven-Göran Eriksson took charge from 2001 to 2006 as the team's first non-English manager. His players were dubbed a "golden generation", and they lost only five competitive matches under him. Even so, England went out at the quarter-finals of the 2002 World Cup, Euro 2004 and the 2006 World Cup. His departure was announced in January 2006, before that last tournament began.

  Steve McClaren was sacked on the 22nd of November 2007, after only 18 matches in charge. England had failed to qualify for Euro 2008. In the decisive qualifier, a 3-2 loss to Croatia, he picked the inexperienced goalkeeper Scott Carson, whose mistake led to Croatia's first goal.

  On the 14th of December 2007, Italian manager Fabio Capello became the second foreign coach in the role. England were seen as favourites to top their group at the 2010 World Cup. Instead they drew their first two games, against the United States and Algeria, and questions followed about spirit, tactics and nerve.

  They still reached the round of 16, where Germany won 4-1, England's heaviest defeat in a World Cup finals match. In that game Frank Lampard hit a shot from outside the area that bounced off the crossbar and over the line. German goalkeeper Manuel Neuer cleared it, and neither the referee nor the assistant awarded a goal. A goal would have made it 2-2.

  The incident, along with similar errors at the tournament, brought an apology from FIFA president Sepp Blatter. It also became a factor in the decision to bring goal-line technology into football. Capello owns the best win ratio of any England manager with at least 25 games, at 66.7 per cent. He resigned in February 2012 after a disagreement with the FA over its wish to remove John Terry as captain following accusations of racial abuse.

  Stuart Pearce took one match as caretaker. In May 2012, Roy Hodgson was named manager just six weeks before Euro 2012. England won their group but lost a penalty shoot-out to Italy in the quarter-finals. At the 2014 World Cup, they went out at the group stage for the first time since 1958. At Euro 2016, Iceland won 2-1 in the round of 16, a result described as among England's worst ever. Hodgson resigned shortly after the final whistle. He remains the oldest man to take the job, at 64.

  Sam Allardyce was announced as his successor in July 2016. He lasted 67 days and one match, leaving by mutual agreement after an alleged breach of FA rules. That makes him the shortest-serving permanent England manager.

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• 6. Southgate and Tuchel

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  Gareth Southgate was coaching the England under-21 team when Allardyce left. He was put in temporary charge until November 2016, then given the job permanently. At the 2018 World Cup, England reached the semi-finals for the third time. They finished second in their group, then beat Colombia on penalties, their first shoot-out win at a World Cup. Sweden fell in the quarter-finals.

  Croatia won the semi-final 2-1 after extra time, and Belgium beat England 2-0 in the match for third place. Harry Kane finished as top scorer with six goals and took the golden boot. The Nations League brought another landmark in 2019, when England finished third in its first finals. That remains their only finals appearance and their best result in the competition.

  On the 14th of November 2019, England played their 1000th international. They beat Montenegro 7-0 at Wembley in a Euro 2020 qualifier.

  The delayed Euro 2020 brought England's first European Championship final. It was also their first final at any major tournament since 1966. They topped a group containing Croatia, Czechia and Scotland, then beat Germany, Ukraine and Denmark in the knockout rounds. At Wembley, Italy drew 1-1 with them and won on penalties. During that period England went 22 games unbeaten from the 18th of November 2020 to the 29th of March 2022. They also went seven straight games without conceding, from the 2nd of June 2021 to the 3rd of July 2021.

  At the 2022 World Cup, England beat Iran and Wales in the group, then Senegal 3-0 in the round of 16. Reigning champions France won the quarter-final 2-1. In that match Kane scored his 53rd England goal, equalling the record at the time. Today he holds it outright, with 78 goals in 112 appearances.

  Euro 2024 followed a similar path. England topped their group above Denmark, Slovenia and Serbia. Against Slovakia, Jude Bellingham scored a bicycle kick in second-half stoppage time to level the game, and England won 2-1 after extra time. They beat Switzerland on penalties after a 1-1 draw, and the Netherlands 2-1 in the semi-final. Spain then won the final 2-1, making England the first team to lose consecutive European Championship finals.

  On the 16th of July 2024, Southgate announced his resignation, saying it was "time for change, and for a new chapter". His 14 wins in major tournaments are a record for an England manager. Under-21 manager Lee Carsley became interim head coach. On the 16th of October 2024, the FA announced that German manager Thomas Tuchel would take over from the 1st of January 2025, the third foreign coach to hold the post.

  Tuchel's side won all six of its qualification matches as of the 14th of October 2025. That made England the first European nation to qualify for the 2026 World Cup.

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• 7. Lions, Colours and Home

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  King Richard I, who reigned from 1189 to 1199, used three lions passant guardant as his emblem, and they became the motif of the England team. In 1872, the players wore white jerseys bearing the Football Association's three lions crest. The lions, often blue, have changed slightly in colour and look over the years. A crown once topped them. It was removed in 1949, when the College of Arms gave the FA an official coat of arms with ten Tudor roses, one for each regional branch of the FA.

  Since 2003, a star above the badge has marked the 1966 World Cup win. It was first stitched onto the left sleeve of the home kit, and a year later moved to its present position, first on the away shirt.

  White shirts, navy blue shorts and white or black socks form the traditional home kit. The team has sometimes worn all white. The first away kits were blue, but red shirts, white shorts and red socks became the tradition. In 1996, England switched to grey shirts, shorts and socks. They wore that kit only three times, including the Euro 1996 semi-final against Germany. Supporters disliked the break from red, which stayed until a navy blue away kit arrived in 2011.

  Occasional third kits have appeared as well. Against Czechoslovakia at the 1970 World Cup, England wore pale blue. In the summer of 1973, they wore a Brazil-style outfit of yellow shirts, yellow socks and blue shorts. For the 1986 World Cup they revived pale blue, and kept it, rarely worn, until 1992.

  Umbro first agreed to make the kit in 1954 and has supplied most of them since. The exceptions are Bukta from 1959 to 1965 and Admiral from 1974 to 1984. Nike bought Umbro in 2008, then took over as supplier in 2013 once the Umbro brand was sold. A deal announced on the 3rd of September 2012 was worth a total of £125m over five years, or £25m a year. A renewal announced on the 13th of December 2016 runs from August 2018 to 2030, at £400m in total, about £33.3m a year.

  For their first 50 years, England had no fixed home and played around the country. They began on cricket grounds, then moved to football club stadiums. The original Empire Stadium at Wembley was built for the British Empire Exhibition. England first played there in 1924 against Scotland. For the next 27 years it hosted only the Scotland fixture, and during the 1950s it became England's permanent home.

  In October 2000, the old stadium closed after a defeat against Germany. It was demolished in 2002-03 and completely rebuilt. In the meantime, Manchester United's Old Trafford became the main venue, with Newcastle United's St. James' Park used when Old Trafford was unavailable. The new Wembley hosted its first England match in March 2007, a draw with Brazil. The Football Association owns it through a subsidiary, Wembley National Stadium Limited.

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• 8. Old Enemies

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  Scottish sports journalists have traditionally called the English the "Auld Enemy". Centuries of conflict between the two nations feed the rivalry, and Scottish nationalism has added to the desire to beat England above all others. It is the oldest international fixture in the world. Yet it has faded since the late 1970s, and the annual fixture stopped in 1989. For England, games against Germany and Argentina now matter more.

  The German rivalry is mainly an English affair. Before a competitive match between the two sides, many UK newspapers print the results of earlier meetings, including the semi-final penalty shoot-out defeats at the 1990 World Cup and Euro 96. Germans see Italy, the Netherlands and France as bigger rivals.

  Barney Ronay wrote in The Guardian in 2021 that it "isn't a close rivalry at all". By the standard definition, he argued, both sides must know a rivalry exists. He added: "Germany have won seven major tournaments. Germany have reached 15 semi-finals since the 'one World Cup' of 1966."

  With Argentina, the contest is fiercer and stranger. Even friendlies tend to produce notable and sometimes controversial incidents. The most famous came in 1986, when Argentina won a World Cup quarter-final 2-1. Diego Maradona scored twice. The first goal was blatantly knocked in by his hand, prompting his "Hand of God" remark. The second was a brilliant solo goal, a high-speed dribble past several opponents.

  This is an intercontinental rivalry, unusual in a sport where such feuds usually link bordering nations. In Argentina, England are regarded as a major rival, matched only by Brazil and Uruguay. In England the feeling is milder, locally called a grudge match, and games against Germany carry greater weight in popular perception. Non-footballing events, especially the 1982 Falklands War between Argentina and the United Kingdom, intensified the rivalry, particularly in Argentina. As of 2008, the teams had met in only 14 full internationals.

  France, Wales and the Republic of Ireland count as smaller rivals. For all the tension with Argentina, England and Argentina have not met since a friendly in November 2005.

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