England

Early years

The England men's national football team is the joint-oldest in the world; it was formed at the same time as Scotland. A representative match between England and Scotland was played on 5 March 1870, having been organised by the Football Association. A return fixture was organised by representatives of Scottish football teams on 30 November 1872. This match, played at Hamilton Crescent in Scotland, is viewed as the first official international football match, because the two teams were independently selected and operated, rather than being the work of a single football association. Over the next 40 years, England played exclusively with the other three Home Nations—Scotland, Wales and Ireland—in the British Home Championship.

At first, England had no permanent home stadium. They joined FIFA in 1906 and played their first games against countries other than the Home Nations on a tour of Central Europe in 1908. Wembley Stadium was opened in 1923 and became their home ground. The relationship between England and FIFA became strained, and this resulted in their departure from FIFA in 1928, before they rejoined in 1946. As a result, they did not compete in a World Cup until 1950, in which they were beaten in a 1–0 defeat by the United States, failing to get past the first round in one of the most embarrassing defeats in the team's history.

Their first defeat on home soil to a foreign team was a 2–0 loss to Ireland, on 21 September 1949 at Goodison Park. A 6–3 loss in 1953 to Hungary, was their second defeat by a foreign team at Wembley. In the return match in Budapest, Hungary won 7–1. This stands as England's largest ever defeat. After the game, a bewildered Syd Owen said, "it was like playing men from outer space". In the 1954 FIFA World Cup, England reached the quarter-finals for the first time, and lost 4–2 to reigning champions Uruguay.

Walter Winterbottom and Alf Ramsey

Although Walter Winterbottom was appointed as England's first full-time manager in 1946, the team was still picked by a committee until Alf Ramsey took over in 1963. The 1966 FIFA World Cup was hosted in England and Ramsey guided England to victory with a 4–2 win against West Germany after extra time in the final, during which Geoff Hurst scored a hat-trick. In UEFA Euro 1968, the team reached the semi-finals for the first time, being eliminated by Yugoslavia.

England qualified automatically for the 1970 World Cup in Mexico as reigning champions, and reached the quarter-finals, where they were knocked out by West Germany. England had been 2–0 up, but were eventually beaten 3–2 after extra time. They then failed to qualify for the 1974 World Cup, leading to Ramsey's dismissal by the FA.

Don Revie, Ron Greenwood and Bobby Robson

Following Ramsey's dismissal, Joe Mercer took immediate temporary charge of England for a seven-match spell until Don Revie was appointed as new permanent manager in 1974. Under Revie, the team underperformed and failed to qualify for either UEFA Euro 1976 or the 1978 World Cup. Revie resigned in 1977 and was replaced by Ron Greenwood, under whom performances improved. The team qualified for Euro 1980 without losing any of their games, but exited in the group stage of the final tournament. They also qualified for the 1982 World Cup in Spain; despite not losing a game, they were eliminated at the second group stage.

Bobby Robson managed England from 1982 to 1990. Although the team failed to qualify for UEFA Euro 1984, they reached the quarter-finals of the 1986 World Cup, losing 2–1 to Argentina in a game made famous by two highly contrasting goals scored by Diego Maradona – the first being blatantly knocked in by his hand, prompting his "Hand of God" remark, the second being an outstandingly skilful individual goal, involving high speed dribbling past several opponents. England striker Gary Lineker finished as the tournament's top scorer with six goals.

England went on to lose every match at UEFA Euro 1988. They next achieved their second best result in the 1990 FIFA World Cup by finishing fourth – losing again to West Germany after a closely contested semi-final finishing 1–1 after extra time, then 3–4 in England's first penalty shoot-out. Despite losing to Italy in the third place play-off, the members of the England team were given bronze medals identical to the Italians'. Due to the team's good performance at the tournament against general expectations, and the emotional nature of the narrow defeat to West Germany, the team were welcomed home as heroes and thousands of people lined the streets for an open-top bus parade.

Graham Taylor, Terry Venables, Glenn Hoddle and Kevin Keegan

The 1990s saw four England managers follow Robson, each in the role for a relatively brief period. Graham Taylor was Robson's immediate successor. England failed to win any matches at UEFA Euro 1992, drawing with tournament winners Denmark and later with France, before being eliminated by host nation Sweden. The team then failed to qualify for the 1994 FIFA World Cup after losing a controversial game against the Netherlands in Rotterdam, which resulted in Taylor's resignation. Taylor faced much newspaper criticism during his tenure for his tactics and team selections.

Between 1994 and 1996, Terry Venables took charge of the team. At UEFA Euro 1996, held in England, they equalled their best performance at a European Championship, reaching the semi-finals as they did in 1968, before exiting via another penalty shoot-out loss to Germany. England striker Alan Shearer was the tournament's top scorer with five goals. At Euro 96, the song "Three Lions" by Baddiel, Skinner and The Lightning Seeds became the definitive anthem for fans on the terraces. Venables announced before the tournament that he would resign at the end of it, following investigations into his personal financial activities and ahead of upcoming court cases. Due to the controversy around him, the FA stressed that he was the coach, not the manager, of the team.

Venables' successor, Glenn Hoddle, took the team to the 1998 World Cup — in which England were eliminated in the second round, again by Argentina and again on penalties (after a 2–2 draw). In February 1999, Hoddle was sacked by the FA due to controversial comments he had made about disabled people to a newspaper. Howard Wilkinson took over as caretaker manager for two matches. Kevin Keegan was then appointed as the new permanent manager and took England to UEFA Euro 2000, but the team exited in the group stage and he unexpectedly resigned shortly afterwards.

Sven-Göran Eriksson, Steve McClaren and Fabio Capello

Peter Taylor was appointed as caretaker manager for one match, before Sven-Göran Eriksson took charge between 2001 and 2006, and was the team's first non-English manager. Although England's players in this era were dubbed a "golden generation" and only lost five competitive matches during Eriksson's tenure, they exited at the quarter-finals of the 2002 FIFA World Cup, UEFA Euro 2004 and the 2006 FIFA World Cup. In January 2006 it was announced that Eriksson would leave the role following that year's World Cup.

Steve McClaren was then appointed as manager, but after failing to qualify for Euro 2008 he was sacked on 22 November 2007 after 18 matches in charge. The following month, he was replaced by a second foreign manager, Italian Fabio Capello. England won all but one of their qualifying games for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, but at the tournament itself, England drew their opening two games; this led to questions about the team's spirit, tactics and ability to handle pressure. They progressed to the next round, where they were beaten 4–1 by Germany, their heaviest defeat in a World Cup finals tournament match. The match became even more famous as a pivotal moment in the refereeing of the sport, leading directly to the introduction of goal line technology, after Frank Lampard scored a goal to tie the game at 2-2 and it was incorrectly ruled out for "failing to cross the goal line", potentially altering the course of the match and certainly exacerbating the discrepancy of its outcome. In February 2012, Capello resigned from his role as England manager, following a disagreement with the FA over their request to remove John Terry from team captaincy after accusations of racial abuse concerning the player.

Roy Hodgson, Sam Allardyce and Gareth Southgate

Following Capello's departure, Stuart Pearce was appointed as caretaker manager for one match, after which in May 2012, Roy Hodgson was announced as the new manager, just six weeks before UEFA Euro 2012. England managed to finish top of their group, but exited the Championships in the quarter-finals via a penalty shoot-out against Italy. In the 2014 FIFA World Cup, England were eliminated at the group stage for the first time since the 1958 World Cup. At UEFA Euro 2016, England were eliminated in the round of 16, losing 2–1 to Iceland. Hodgson resigned as manager in June 2016, and just under a month later was replaced by Sam Allardyce. After only 67 days in charge, Allardyce resigned from his managerial post by mutual agreement, after an alleged breach of FA rules, making him the shortest serving permanent England manager.

Gareth Southgate, then the coach of the England under-21 team, was put in temporary charge of the national team until November 2016, before being given the position on a permanent basis. At the 2018 FIFA World Cup, England reached the semi-finals for only the third time. After finishing second in their group, England won on penalties against Colombia in the round of 16 before beating Sweden in the quarter-finals. In the semi-final, they were beaten 2–1 in extra time by Croatia and finished 4th after losing the third place play-off match against Belgium. England striker Harry Kane finished the tournament as top scorer with six goals.

On 14 November 2019, England played their 1000th International match, defeating Montenegro 7–0 at Wembley in a UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying match.

At the delayed UEFA Euro 2020, England reached the final of a major tournament for the first time since 1966 and their first ever European Championship final appearance. After finishing top of a group including Croatia, Scotland and Czech Republic, the Three Lions would subsequently defeat Germany, Ukraine and Denmark to advance to the final. In the final held at Wembley, England were defeated by Italy on penalties after a 1–1 draw.

At the 2022 World Cup, England defeated Iran and Wales in the group stage to qualify for the round of 16. In the round of 16, England defeated the reigning African champions Senegal by 3–0, but were eliminated by the reigning world champions France in the quarter-finals, 2–1. Harry Kane's goal against France was his 53rd for England, equalling the all-time record. He would later miss an 84th-minute penalty with the chance to level the match.