What if Koeman had been sent off for pulling down Platt, giving us a freekick and not allowing him to score a freekick against us. It would have meant we only had to win by six against san marino which would cause us to not ask ‘what if we hadnt conceeded the most stupid international goal after only 20 seconds against san marino?’

What if England had entered the world cup in the thirties, when they were the best team in the world

What if Mussolini hadn’t had the ref for dinner the night before the final.

If there hadn’t been wrong refereeing decisions against Hungary v Germany.

If the Germans hadn’t dived.

If Cruyff had turned up.

If Paolo Rossi had served his full ban.

If Ronaldo hadn’t had a fit or Zidane had kept his head.

But generally speaking, England have a mediocre international record because they’ve played poorly. And are crap at penalties (mental weakness under pressure).

“By Albo | March 2nd, 2009 at 10:54 am
What if… how pathetic.
What if Ratín hadn’t been kicked out of the game, back in 1966, when, as a captain, tried to ask the ref what was a call about? Remember? We were called “animals” by the english media. (the manager actually).
Maybe Argentina would have won that match and kicked England out of their only star in their jersey. In their own house.
Nahhh
Impossible.
I must be dreaming…”

Exactly. What if Ratín hadn’t been kicked out of that game? No doubt things would have gone very differently. That’s the whole point of “what if…” It’s not meant to be taken personally.

What if Ratín hadn’t been kicked out of the game, back in 1966, when, as a captain, tried to ask the ref what was a call about? Remember? We were called “animals” by the english media.

Maybe Argentina would have won that match and kicked England out of their only star in their jersey. In their own house.
Nahhh
Impossible.
I must be dreaming…

… to be honest I think Lineker deals with his misfortunes very well, and has indeed moved on, is a gent and is doing well for himself considering the hand of god goal, and he also narrowly missed a goal towards the end and would have been considered one of the greats. If Maradona was cheated out of so much glory he would have fallen in to even more of a mess due to his weak character in many aspects, but you can’t doubt that the first goal leant to the second, just look at a video of all the amazing goals he has done in his career on Youtube.

I’m always bantering about football with my English friends, that’s all it was, and I can certainly “look them in the eye” along with many normal English fans, and many people from the UK go to Argentina for holidays now, so speak for yourself.

There’s a handful of Argies that whined about Owen’s dive in 2002 for a while, I prefer to blame Veron for letting down Bielsa’s system for the game, and others for not finishing properly and creating more chances. That’s in the past now and I was proud of the fact that they assembled a stronger team for the next one.

Every team has been cheated in some way out of going further in the world cup in some way by either a player or ref, but there’s nothing productive in dwelling on the ‘could have been’ (or ‘having fun’ with the ‘could have been’) really, you’ll just allow chavs to harbour even more bitterness towards us. You could have spent all the time studying tactics and systems – take football more seriously if you want to go forward! – or you’ll end up like the Scots, playing like elephants whilst there supporters are all about ‘humour’, having fun and taking the piss, when they once had the most advanced technical ball-on-the-floor styles in the world.

Just to chime in here, real quick: why is Uruguay left out (having won more WCs than France) and England excluded? If we’re talking about the big World Cup sides, they’d have to be only Brazil, Germany and Italy, who between them have 2/3 of all the World Cups and are always contenders…

Joe Argentino, Albo:

Let’s not start insulting each other’s teams, because there’s nothing productive or interesting at the end of that road.

As for the no hand of god, no goal of the century argument, I certainly think one influenced the other, but even if he had pulled out a classic goal, without the HoG, that only makes it 1-1 and leaves us in with a shout, no?