15 June 1988, Rheinstadion, Düsseldorf. Netherlands 3–1 England.
By Hamish McTavish
A Wednesday in the old West Germany, sixty-four thousand in the Rheinstadion, and a side that had already been told they were rubbish after six minutes of the summer. Peter Shilton was winning his hundredth cap. Marco van Basten, who had not known until the morning that he was playing, was winning the night. Bobby Robson had taken Chris Waddle and Neil Webb out and put Glenn Hoddle and Trevor Steven in, which was a manager trying to fight skill with skill after Jack Charlton’s Ireland had already taken the first one. The Mail would need the morning to find the road to oblivion. The night only needed a man who had been a substitute against the Soviets.
England had come to the tournament as one of the sides you were supposed to have in the last four. That is the certainty they packed, along with the idea that a first-night loss to Ireland was a stumble and not a verdict. They still had Lineker. They still had Bryan Robson. They still had Hoddle, finally, in a shirt that had spent years pretending he was a luxury. Rinus Michels had lost the opener to the USSR and answered by dropping John Bosman and starting Van Basten. Bobby Robson answered by trying to play. The papers, having printed RUBBISH after Houghton, had already begun the funeral. They had not yet found oblivion. They would, by breakfast.
Düsseldorf in June is a bowl that does not care what you promised in March. The support had come anyway, because that is what you do when your lot are supposed to be a European side. Ireland and the Soviet Union were playing the other one the same evening. A point here still looked like a life. A hiding here, and a draw over there, and you are on the plane before the last group night. That is the arithmetic they preferred not to do on the way in. The Dutch, who had looked ordinary against the Soviets, were about to look like the side that would lift the thing in Munich.
They kicked off anyway.
England had the better of the first hour if you count the woodwork as a moral argument. Gary Lineker went through and hit a post. Hoddle bent a free-kick onto the bar. For a stretch they looked like the side the spring had advertised. Then, a minute from the interval, Ruud Gullit took the ball off Gary Stevens on the left touchline, rolled it low into the middle, and Van Basten, who had all the time a centre-forward is not supposed to be given, dragged it away from Tony Adams and put it past Shilton. One-nil, on the hundredth night, from a man who had been told in the morning to get changed.
Bryan Robson did the thing he always did. Eight minutes after the restart he exchanged with Lineker, went past the last two, and dinked it in off Hans van Breukelen. One-one, and the ground thought it might yet be the salvage they had written on the way in. That is the turn, and they do not know it yet. They think they have matched a Dutch side that is about to win the thing. They have matched them for ten minutes.
Van Basten scored again just after the seventy-second minute, low, left-footed, Shilton exposed, Stevens hung out a second time. Four minutes later he had the third, the one the Dutch still show when they want you to see how easy it looked. A hat-trick against England, the first since 1959, and he walked off to the noise three minutes from the end as if he had been doing this on Tuesdays. Ireland and the USSR drew 1–1 in Hanover the same night. England were out with a game to play. They would lose that one as well, 3–1 to the Soviets, and then Bryan Robson would punch Shilton in a hotel bar and they would make up over breakfast, which is as close as the summer came to a plan.
Bobby Robson, in the room afterwards, said there was not much elation and that they could not have extracted any more from the players, and that there was no way they should be ashamed of this performance. The Mail, with a night to think, put English football on the road to oblivion. The Times, the same week, had the game draped in a black cloak. Robson would get to devastated and ashamed after the Soviets. He can have the sequence. Van Basten had the night.
Van Basten had not known he was starting. He started, and he took the summer. Gullit had the roll and the two assists that made Stevens look like a full-back who had already played Ireland. Adams, twenty-one, had the drag-back he will still see. Shilton had the hundredth cap and the three he could not reach. Lineker had the post. Hoddle had the bar. Bryan Robson had the equaliser and the punch later, which is a different kind of captaincy. Bobby Robson had skill with skill, which only works if the other lot miss. Michels had the substitute he turned into a centre-forward. The papers had rubbish, then oblivion, then the cloak. The score is the only one that stayed still.
They said last four. They said a stumble. They said we should not be ashamed. They said English football. If you still think it was only a group game, a funeral is only a Tuesday. The group game put them on the plane. The hat-trick put the road on the back page. They took the road.
The film is up. UEFA still keep the three: the drag-back, the low one, the gift. Do not review it. Watch the favourite become a substitute’s evening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0ykKJzRxnc
Related reading
- Rubbish — Stuttgart 1988, the Ireland opener that started the funeral
- Ta ta, turnip — Rotterdam 1993, another Dutch night that ended a campaign
If the nights sit right, the shirts and the wall are at /shop.
FAQ
What was the score when the Netherlands beat England at Euro 1988?
Netherlands 3–1 England, on 15 June 1988 at the Rheinstadion, Düsseldorf. Van Basten scored a hat-trick; Bryan Robson equalised briefly.
Why “On the road to oblivion”?
The Daily Mail’s morning line after the defeat — English football is on the road to oblivion — after a group night that put England out with a game still to play.
Who scored the hat-trick?
Marco van Basten, starting after being a substitute against the USSR. First hat-trick against England since 1959.