Group B. Apart from British football chauvinism and Spanish blind faith, the real assessment favoured only the Germans: the hope that England could somehow start stronger more or less was abandoned in 1980. Spain was not a winning team. Only West Germany was a team capable of improving and may be starting to play something at last. The group was very tough, but… Spain was unlikely winner: if lucky, concentrated, and with some official’s help, they could go ahead. The limits of the team were obvious, especially when it came to attacking – no creativity and no scoring. England… tough, fighting to the end, attacking, but still typical British in approach, lacking tactical diversity, somewhat slower than usual, creatively impoverished, but there was hope that Keegan, Brooking, Wilkins, Francis could prevail in a good day. Only the Germans had potential – having Breitner in midfield, the only midfielder in this group capable of magical passes. If Derwal managed to get the right mixture of players, if Rummenigge find his touch at last, if the team start playing like 1980… after all, it was the same in 1974 and eventually the right combination was worked out. West Germany was seemingly the likelier winner of the group with Spain last, but in the same time three physical, tough, and rather bland squads were perfectly capable of canceling each other out. There was big and nightmarish possibility all matches ending 0-0. And then what? And injuries enforced the scary scenario: Rummenigge and Keegan were under question and their weak performance so far was entirely blamed on the injuries they arrived at the finals with.
England – West Germany. What was expected to be fast, attacking, direct clash of two giants turned out to be an icy game – slow and watchful, both teams really moved like icebergs, waiting for a chancy opening, for tiny mistake of the other side. Neither coach risked some tactical innovation, not even change of players – injured Rummenigge was on the field. Magath was on the bench even when Hansi Muller was so far disappointing. Littbarski was on the bench. Fischer was on the bench. The only change Derwall made was the opposite of what seemingly should have been done: the Germans started the match with 2 strikers. Cautious, defensively-minded approach. Greenwood left Keegan and Brooking out of the starters, which also looked like mistake – perhaps that was the match they could really help. Viv Anderson was also on the bench. Only on the surface Greenwood’s choice looked ‘daring’ – at a closer look, it was clear that he chose starters close to straight-forward English approach. Nothing surprising for the Germans.
And both teams moved icily cool back and forth, every move predictable, every clash predictable, and bored viewers to death. After the match Dettmar Kramer said about his compatriots “I don’t hope this team could improve its game’. The match ended 0-0. It was not like the teams did not want to win… they were just incapable of finding a way to win.
West Germany – Spain. Derwall risked some tactical changes at last, yet, without going rally far. Useless Rummenigge was again a starter. Fischer and Littbarski were starters and Brigel was moved back to midfield. Hansi Muller was entirely out, not even among the reserves, but… Magath was not fielded. Spain was the same as before – really, who was there to replace the starters? The reserves were more or less just copies of the starters, weaker copies. Santillana was back among the starters – may be included too late for producing some positive change.
The opponents run, time run, the dark cloud of the worst scenario was getting darker… the ominous zeroes on the scoreboard. Eventually, the Germans scored in 50th minute, thanks to Littbarski and in the 75th minute Fischer scored a second goal. In the 81st minute Zamora scored for Spain and the worst scenario returned… but all ended 2-1 for West Germany. Spain was out. ‘Luck’ was the word chosen by observers – ‘lucky Germans, unlucky Spaniards’. That was all… neither team deserved a commentary on tactics, style, anything related to playing aspect. Rummenigge and Arconada, the greatest stars of the teams, were singled out for criticism. So obvious were the limitations of the hosts by now, that their elimination provoked no big outcry in Spain – it was clear nothing can be done with a team like that.
England – Spain. The hosts had to play only for their pride. England had to win with 2 goals difference to qualify. Greenwood decided to use 3 forwards, which appeared to be massive innovation for those following the English national team – they played with 2 strikers practically forever. Keegan and Brooking were back at last, kind of – both were listed as reserves.
And once again nothing interesting on the field… it was only painfully clear that England did not have a real playmaker and no matter what was said about the ‘great innovations’ Greenwood introduced, his team was playing the old English direct style, which for years led to nowhere and so was in this match too. Keegan and Brooking were fielded together at last in the 64th minute, only to show how costly coach’s errors and fears could be: they invigorated England, but there was no enough time. 0-0.
West Germany 2 1 1 0 2 1 +1 3
England 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 2
Spain 2 0 1 1 1 2 −1 1
Well, the group finished as expected. Everything was just as expected… except that football suffered. It was time to mock Luis Kubala – before the start of the second round he called the 12 teams ‘the apostels of modern football’. The ‘apostels’ not only did not show anything new and exciting, they rather showed descend and the only word to correctly describe them was ‘boring stiffs’. It applied to more teams, but this group was only that from start to finish. Even the English did not make much noise of the fact that their team exited the championship unbeaten – big deal, if they were no losers, since they were no winners either. If there was some interesting football played – collectively! – by this three teams, it would be only England against France. Some world leaders…