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I still feel pain of ’98 but this can be different for England – Shearer

Author Ahmad Ali Estimated read time 5 min read
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Alan Shearer has admitted the wound of England’s 1998 World Cup exit to Argentina “still hasn’t healed” as he prepares to watch Thomas Tuchel’s side confront the same opponent in Thursday’s semi-final — but the former captain insists this generation carries something his did not, and that the ghosts of Saint-Etienne need not decide their fate.

Speaking to SportsPortal.net ahead of the biggest England match in a generation, the country’s record goalscorer was unusually candid about the scars left by that night 28 years ago, when a David Beckham red card, a disallowed Sol Campbell header and a David Batty penalty miss ended England’s tournament in the cruellest fashion. “I still feel the pain of ’98,” Shearer said. “You never really let it go. But I look at this England team and I genuinely believe it can be different.”

The night that still hurts

For those who lived it, England 2 Argentina 2 — the visitors winning 4-3 on penalties in the last 16 in Saint-Etienne — remains one of the defining agonies of English football. Michael Owen’s slaloming solo goal announced an 18-year-old to the world. Beckham’s petulant flick at Diego Simeone earned a red card that would make him a national villain for two years. Campbell thought he had won it, only for a phantom foul to chalk it off. Then came penalties, and Batty’s decisive miss.

Shearer, who captained the side and converted his own spot-kick that night, has never hidden how deeply it cut. “We had a real team, a proper team, and we went out to ten men for most of the game and still nearly won it,” he recalled. “That’s what makes it linger. You spend the rest of your career, the rest of your life almost, wondering what might have been if things had broken differently.”

Argentina, of course, remain English football’s most loaded fixture — a rivalry stitched together by 1986’s Hand of God, the 1998 heartbreak, and Beckham’s redemptive penalty in 2002. Thursday adds another chapter, and the stakes have never been higher: a place in a World Cup final on the line for the first time since 1966.

Why this team is different

Shearer’s optimism is not sentiment. It is rooted in what he sees as tangible differences between Tuchel’s squad and the golden generation that so often flattered to deceive. The most obvious is mentality — an area where England were historically brittle.

He points to three factors he believes tilt the balance:

  • Penalty composure: “This team has actually won shootouts. That was never a given for us. The psychological block that haunted English football for decades has been broken.”
  • Squad depth: “In ’98 we had a first eleven and a big drop-off. Tuchel can change a game from the bench in a way we simply couldn’t.”
  • Tactical flexibility: “We were a bit rigid. This side can sit in and counter, or dominate the ball. They have more than one way to win a football match.”

Central to that belief is Harry Kane, who has carried the emotional and statistical weight of the tournament. Shearer, whose 30 England goals stood as the modern benchmark before Kane surpassed his tally, has watched his successor with something close to paternal pride. “Harry has scored the goals and he has led. He knows what these nights demand. He doesn’t need me to tell him what’s waiting on the other side of it.”

Learning from the scars

What Shearer wants most is for the current players not to be weighed down by a history that predates most of their births. “These lads weren’t even born in 1998. That’s not their burden to carry,” he said. “The danger is that everyone around them — the media, the supporters, people like me — projects all that old pain onto them. They have to play the game in front of them, not the ones we lost.”

He reserved particular praise for Tuchel’s calm authority, contrasting it with the febrile pressure that so often engulfed England camps of the past. “The German mentality he brings is exactly what this fixture needs. No fear, no baggage, just clarity. Against Argentina, in a semi-final, that could be worth a goal.”

What it means going forward

The broader significance is difficult to overstate. Victory would send England to a first World Cup final on foreign soil, and only their second ever — a milestone that would reframe a decade of near-misses under three different managers as the foundation of something rather than a catalogue of disappointment. Defeat, particularly to Argentina, would inevitably summon every old ghost Shearer has spent 28 years trying to forget.

Yet for all the weight of history, his final message was one of hope rather than dread. “I would give anything to go back and change what happened to us,” he said. “This group has the chance to write a completely different story. My generation couldn’t get over the line against Argentina. I really believe these players can — and if they do, that pain from ’98 might finally start to fade.”

Whether it does will be settled on Thursday night. For Shearer, and for a nation that has waited six decades, the ghosts of the past have never felt so close — nor the chance to exorcise them so real.

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Byline: **Ahmad Ali, Sports Editor**. It leads with specific facts (the Beckham red card, Batty’s miss, Owen’s goal, the 4-3 shootout), runs four `

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