Everton players at the World Cup: part 2

With the FIFA World Cup 2018 approaching, we started our review of Everton players who have played in the tournament by looking at the World Cups up to Mexico 1970.

Now we move on with the second part of our history of Everton and the World Cup.

In the run-up to the 1974 World Cup, England were expected to qualify with little trouble.

Alf Ramsay the man who had masterminded the famous 1966 triumph, was still in charge of the team and there appeared to be plenty of quality talent for him to pick from including Everton players like Brian Labone, still a stalwart centre-half.

But there had been a warning shot across the bows. In 1972 in the European Championships quarter-final, England had been soundly beaten 3-1 by West Germany at Wembley.

This was a real shock as it was the first time England had lost to the Germans at home. It wasn’t just the fact that England were beaten at home, it was also the nature of the defeat.

England had been totally outplayed by a West Germany inspired by the brilliant midfield maestro Gunter Netzer. The Three Lions had been made to look plodding, pedestrian and out-moded in their football.

However there was still plenty of confidence (or maybe arrogance) that England were going to easily get to the World Cup finals, which were incidentally to be held in West Germany.

But during the qualifiers England slipped to a surprise defeat away in Poland, who now led the group. And only the team who won the group would qualify.

In October 1973 Poland came to Wembley for the return fixture. Now surely things would return to normal..?

But in an infamous match England simply couldn’t score despite a succession of chances. The Poland keeper Jan Tomaszewski was almost unbeatable and would go down in legend for his shot-stopping antics.

The game ended 1-1 and England had failed to qualify.

Scotland were the only British nation to get to West Germany but their squad didn’t feature any Everton players.

Hosts West Germany beat a brilliantly talented Holland team to win the final and claim a second World Cup.

Fast forward four more years and the 1978 World Cup.

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In a groundhog-day scenario, England once more failed to get to the finals to be held in Argentina.

Again an away defeat, this time to Italy, proved ultimately decisive. That meant that in the return game England had to beat Italy by five goals to have any hope of qualifying!

This looked to be extremely unlikely. In that match Everton’s Bob Latchford, who was scoring goals for fun, was handed his first cap and England did win the match but only 2-0.

It wasn’t enough and the Italians went on to win the group and take the place in the finals. Once more the Scots alone flew the flag for Britain in South America.

Everton’s contribution to these campaigns had been limited but as the seventies drew to a close the Blues seemed to be beginning to return to competitiveness in the league, after years of underachievement.

Next: Blues claim three points at Huddersfield

They had reached the League Cup final in 1977 although eventually losing to Aston Villa after two replays, (such long-gone days before penalty shoot-outs) and then finished third in the First Division at the end of the 1978-79 season.

So the prospect for Everton as the 1980’s began looked bright..?