David Runciman teaches politics at Cambridge. He is the host of the podcast Past Present Future. Some of these sides do actually show up but turn out to be shadows of their former selves, like poor old Spain, dead men walking after just a couple of games there will be a certain ghoulish fascination to seeing how they perform in their final zombie match-up with the Australians.
But there are also the teams that you would expect to be watching who have somehow failed to qualify. During the s the ghosts were England, who went from being one of the best teams in the world to no-shows at both the and finals. In this tournament part of an entire continent is missing. Europe remains notably over-represented in what is supposed to be a global competition.
The far north and the east are more or less absent. This is the first World Cup since with no Scandinavian representation, and in that tournament there were plenty of sides from the old Soviet bloc to make up the numbers Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were there. Like many people, I imagine, I can remember exactly where I was and what I was doing each time England have been knocked out of the World Cup. In I was in Australia and had to get up in the middle of the night to watch England get thumped by Germany, which was a sterile and deadening experience.
In I also happened to be in Australia, though that was my first time and I had only been in the country 24 hours, so seeing England lose on penalties to Portugal was more spacey and surreal. In I was in a meeting to grade student exams, which was interrupted briefly to tell us what we already knew, that England had lost to Brazil.
In I saw England lose on penalties to Argentina in the front room of a house in Cambridge. In I saw England lose on penalties to Germany in the front room of a different house in Cambridge. In I was at boarding school and a teacher told us that England had failed to get the required result against Spain, which caused me inadvertently to swear in front of his wife. In I was only three. It adds up to a conventional, privileged life, during which England are never going to win the World Cup.
