Paul Gascoigne: Tears in Turin and England's World Cup heartbreak at Italia 90 (2024)

Saturday, July 4 is the 25th anniversary of England’s heartbreaking World Cup semi-final defeat to West Germany. Here we recall a momentous night on which Paul Gascoigne’s tears touched a nation...

“When things are good and I can see they’re about to end I get scared, really scared. I couldn’t help but cry that night.”

Twenty-five years have passed since that tearful night in Turin, but Paul Gascoigne’s words have lost none of their poignancy.

The flamboyant and extraordinarily gifted midfielder, a thrilling newcomer to international football and England’s youngest player at Italia 90, had been the star of the tournament and captivated supporters around the world on England’s route to their first – and only – World Cup semi-final since 1966.

But after another brilliant individual performance against West Germany and with the scores level at 1-1 in the first half of extra-time, Gascoigne’s ill-fated lunge on Thomas Berthold earned him a booking which would rule him out of the final if England progressed.

“When I was a young kid playing at my youth club, every night I used to dream about playing football at the World Cup,” 'Gazza’ later reflected. “I lived that dream in Italy, but when I was shown the yellow card I knew it had come to an end.”

Ultimately, it was eventual winners West Germany who earned the right to face Argentina in the final as they triumphed 4-3 on penalties with Chris Waddle missing the decisive spot kick that the distraught Gascoigne was scheduled to take.

England had come within touching distance of World Cup glory with what manager Bobby Robson described as one of their best performances in the previous 25 years, but goalscorer Gary Lineker recalls how little was expected of them in the build-up to the game.

“No one gave us much of a chance,” he said. “The Germans had strolled through, they’d won every game in normal time and they had had an extra day’s rest.”

Indeed, West Germany had scored 10 goals to England’s two in the group stages before easing past Netherlands and Czech Republic, while Robson’s men needed extra time to defeat Belgium and Cameroon.

But England had outplayed Franz Beckenbauer’s men in normal time. “The Germans scored a fluky goal and then nothing,” said defender Mark Wright. “We didn’t give up,” added Lineker. “We kept going as we had done right through that competition.”

After Andres Brehme’s deflected opener on the hour-mark, Lineker equalised with his fourth goal of the tournament in the 80th minute as he capitalised on some hesitant German defending. “It just bounced nicely for me,” Lineker recalled. “I flicked it from one thigh and hit it with my left foot and it hit the back of the net. It was an amazing feeling.”

Unfortunately, that moment was as good as it got for the Three Lions. Gascoigne’s exhilarating performance might have led them to the final on another day, but he never recovered from the booking. “You could see that the Gazza we knew was going to explode,” said John Barnes. “He lost the plot,” sighed Lineker.

Years later, Robson, who left his post as manager after the game, captured the sadness of that gut-wrenching moment. “My heart sank,” he said. “My heart hit my shoes. Because I realised instantly, that was the final forPaul Gascoigne, out. And that’s a tragedy – for him, me, the team, the country, the whole of football. Because he was so good, and he was superb in this particular match. The bigger the game, the better he got.

“I saw his face change, from being aggressive, fighting for the ball, to realising he’d committed an error, and he’d been booked, and he knew now the final was not for him. Tears began to well into his eyes.”

His Tottenham team-mate Lineker was famously captured on camera gesturing to the England bench when he went over to console Gascoigne. “I didn’t even know that it would be viewed by anybody, it wasn’t meant for the cameras,” Lineker said. “I saw his bottom lip starting to go and I just wanted to make Bobby aware of it.”

But Robson was grateful for Lineker’s warning. “Gary Lineker was very clever, he saw it immediately and came as close as he could to me and said, watch Gazza. Watch him. He thought now his mind might just go a bit berserk… and I understood it.”

Gascoigne was too upset to speak at the time, but he described his emotions in his book Glorious: My World, Football and Me. “Suddenly I can’t hear anything,” he wrote. “The world just stops apart from the bloke in black. My eyes follow his hand, to the pocket, then out with the card.

“There it is, raised above my head. I looked at the crowd, I looked at Lineker, and I couldn’t hold it back. At that moment I just wanted to be left alone. I didn’t want to talk to anyone or see anyone. My bottom lip was like a helicopter pad. I was devastated.”

Gascoigne has never quite forgiven Berthold for his theatrical reaction to the challenge. “When I made that tackle, I missed him and the ball,” he said in a newspaper interview in 2002. “He dived, as Germans do, to get me booked.” And Robson sympathised with Gascoigne. “It was only half a booking,” he said.

In the penalty shoot-out, Stuart Pearce blinked first as his effort was saved by Germany goalkeeper Bodo Illgner. “My world collapsed,” the defender said. “I had been taking penalties for as long as I could remember, but I’d missed the most important penalty of my life. It was my fault that England were not in the World Cup final.”

Waddle then blasted his effort over the crossbar after Olaf Thon had converted for Germany. "I went up and kicked the ball as hard as I could,” Waddle said. “If I'd miskicked it, it would probably have gone in. But that's life." Tears streamed down Gascoigne’s face as England came to terms with a cruel defeat in what Terry Butcher described as Italia 90’s “real final”. “It still rankles,” said Lineker. “We were within a whisker of a World Cup final. We’d have won it too. Argentina were shot.”

Despite falling heartbreakingly short in Italy, Gascoigne and his team-mates were welcomed home as heroes by England supporters who had fallen in love with the national team again after two decades of dreariness.

But for all the optimism that tournament brought, England have never again scaled the same heights as 1990. Penalty shoot-out heartache has become an all-too-familiar refrain, and they are yet to produce another player capable of matching the iconic brilliance of Gascoigne in that tournament.

“I never got the chance to play in another World Cup,” Gascoigne said recently. “They were the best times for me and I didn’t want them to end. I really thought we were going to win that World Cup. It’s hard to look back because you think, ‘those were the days’.”