I was too young to remember 1970, but 1982 we had a real chance. I recall brooking and Keegan coming on for the last 20 mins and we had a couple of great chances to win by the required 2 goals. 1986 was hugely frustrating as we didn’t start playing against Argentina until we were 2 down. I still can’t believe that Lineker didn’t put that Barnes cross away.
In 1990 we just road our luck. The teams since then have all been overhyped and under achieved except of course 2018 where we clearly overachieved having taken advantage of a decent draw, although I can’t help feeling that having got a semi against a very beatable Croatia we really should have got to the final.

If Brooking and Keegan had been fit from the start we would have had a very good chance, but we were lucky to even get to Spain, Romania f*cled up at home to Switzerland in their last qualifying game to let us back in. And were a bit stodgy and predictable - Germany were average but managed to find a way as they always do, Italy, Brazil or even Poland (very good side then, semi-finalists) would have got the better of us imho. Bit like the Gerard/Lampard problem, we based the England side around Bryan Robson back then, many of us think it shud have been based around Glen Hoddle - I remeber us beating Spain 4-2 away in a friendly with Glen pulling the strings and Robson more supportive - we were awesome.