Defeat at Wembley on Saturday night extended England’s miserable historical record against Brazil, a match-up that is by a wide margin the Three Lions’ worst in all of international football.
So we’ve decided to go back and find out the opponents against whom England have the worst overall record, stopping at eight because a) by this point you’re actually looking at quite a good overall record really and b) go any further and we’d have had to include Scotland.
One could, if one were so inclined, come up with all manner of complicated ways of measuring this – weighting for competitive games and more World Cup games and such – but we’ve said tits to all that. What we’ve done is have a five-match minimum, which feels like it’s probably not quite enough but again we really didn’t want to include Scotland, and treated everything as if it’s three points for a win, one for a draw, and then ranked them on points per game. Extra-time counts, penalty shoot outs don’t. Fight us.
8. Sweden – P25 W9 D9 L7 GF40 GA32 Pts 36 PPG 1.44
England infamously went over 40 years and 12 games without a win over Sweden between 1968 and 2011, including draws in the group stage at both the 2002 and 2006 World Cups.
That 2011 win at Wembley was followed by a very silly London Bus of a win at the Euros seven months later before the general propensity for daftness in games against Sweden continued in what will forever be known as The Zlatan Game. He scored all four Sweden goals in a 4-2 win, topped off with an absurd 30-yard overhead kick because he felt like it on an absurd evening that also incorporated the entire international careers of Ryan Shawcross and Carl Jenkinson as well as the first of Wilfried Zaha’s two England caps.
England won the last meeting between the two in uncharacteristically serene fashion in the 2018 World Cup quarter-final.
7. Germany/West Germany – P35 W14 D8 L13 GF57 GA46 Pts 50 PPG 1.43
England’s early dominance and the irrelevance to these calculations of penalty shootouts makes the overall record against their most bitter international football foe seem really not that bad all things considered.
Three of the last four have been drawn, with the exception England’s 2-0 win at Wembley in the Euro 2020 last 16, a win that restored England’s overall winning record against the Germans. Again, with the caveat that we’re pretending penalty shootouts aren’t a thing here. That same caveat, by the way, gives England a 6-2 winning record against Argentina, which definitely doesn’t feel real.
6. Italy – P32 W10 D11 L11 GF39 GA35 Pts 41 PPG 1.28
And two of these draws ended in painful penalty shootout defeat, too. England have gained the smallest quantity of revenge imaginable for the Euro final heartbreak by winning the last two meetings in qualification for this year’s tournament to at least slightly improve the overall record against one of only four teams against whom England have an overall losing record in international football.
5. Romania – P12 W3 D6 L3 GF11 GA10 Pts 15 PPG 1.25
A surprising one, certainly. England’s 1-0 win in a 2020 friendly ended 50 years of hurt against the Romanians, although like us you’re probably mainly condensing those 50 years into the Euro 2000 nonsense in Charlerio, aren’t you? Romania also got the better of England in the 1998 World Cup group stage while the two met in qualifying for both the 1982 and 1986 World Cups, with England managing only three draws and a defeat across those four games.
We don’t quite know why we find it so very funny that Michael Owen is the only man to score more than a single career goal against Romania for England, but we think it’s probably got something to do with the list of players with one goal against Romania including such legendary England goalscorers as Geoff Hurst, Alan Shearer and Rob Lee.
4. Chile – P6 W2 D2 L2 GF4 GA5 Pts 8 PPG 1.25
Slightly tenuous given the overall lack of games, but feels worth its place because England haven’t beaten Chile in over 70 years now. After winning the first two encounters – including one at the 1950 World Cup – England haven’t managed so much as a goal against the Chileans since 1953. A pair of goalless draws in the 80s have been followed by a pair of 2-0 friendly defeats at Wembleys old (1998) and new (2013).
3. Netherlands – P22 W6 D9 L7 GF31 GA29 Pts 27 PPG 1.23
There have been some famous clashes between England and the Netherlands down the decades, but few of them ending with England on top.
The most conspicuous one that did was the 4-1 demolition job at Euro 96 that really did have everyone believing football might be coming home, while after that it was a diet of friendly after friendly – eight in all – until an extra-time kicking for England in the inaugural Nations League Finals.
Historically, a lot of friendlies between these two near neighbours. Sixteen in all out of those 22 games and perhaps surprisingly only one ever meeting at the World Cup finals – the goalless draw in the 1990 group stage. They would meet in the qualifiers for the next World Cup, including what must be England’s most famous defeat outside major tournament finals. He’s gonna flick one…
2. Uruguay – P11 W3 D3 L5 GF11 GA15 Pts 12 PPG 1.09
England did end 37-year hoodoo against Uruguay with a 2-1 win at Anfield in 2006, but the most recent encounter between the teams remains the 2014 World Cup group stage game and nobody wants to talk about the 2014 World Cup group stage ever again thank you very much.
Also met in the opening game of the 1966 World Cup, where the Uruguayans housed their way to a point with a bus-parking endeavour that seemed to suggest England were set for yet more major tournament disappointment.
1. Brazil – P27 W4 D11 L12 GF23 GA35 Pts 23 PPG 0.85
It’s an absolutely miserable record for England, and starkly worse than anything they’ve managed over the years against any opponent they’ve met on more than a handful of occasions.
England even managed to win the first meeting between the two in 1956 but wouldn’t taste victory against Braazil again until 1984 in the Maracana when John Barnes scored one of the all-time great England goals in a famous 2-0 win.
England’s only other wins have come in Wembley friendlies in 1990 and 2013. England and Brazil have met in four World Cups, with England on the losing side in each of the last three – most recently the 2002 quarter-final but perhaps most famously the 1970 group stage – since a goalless draw in 1958.
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