A pair of England football lists

For kicks, here's an extravaganza of England football chat.

First of all, from best to worst, here are all England's men's major championship campaigns since i remember, in 1986.

Qualification is taken into account, especially, obviously, when qualification didn't happen! (but occasionally when it did ...)

It's more interesting near the bottom, probably:

1. 1990 - It's tricky at the top, but i guess this was the best, just about. England didn't lose til the 3rd place play-off, they really were so close, it was pretty great
2. 1996 - I mean, I'm surprised I've put this above 2018, because it was only the Euros, but the two losses to Belgium are really problematic in 2018, and the Netherlands win was just the best win of all of them.
3. 2018 - Maybe it will come top in a while, but it has to be a little bothersome that England lost three games, and that Panama and Tunisia were quite average. But Sweden and Colombia were lush. And you know, people saying Croatia were the better team in the semi, i wouldn't say that's true - if England had got that second goal before half-time, it would be a whole different story.
4. 2004 - The defence was a mess, but this was a fun, fun tournament. England scored 9 goals in 4 games ... if Rio had been there, they'd have won that tournament.
5. 1986 - It's pretty memorable, there were 2 3-0s, and a nice sense of bitterness and rancour lingers, I mean, it's no good without the sense of injustice.
6. 1998 - Again, England played great stuff here. And I think the 2-2 with Argentina was the single most classic game of all them. Just a proper masterpiece of a football match, by anyone's reckoning.
7. 2002 - This has slightly faded for me - there was the redemptive win v Argentina and Denmark were well-handled. And i guess with lots of injuries England pretty much played to par, but the Brazil loss was such a limp exit ... I mean, they had 30 minutes at 10 men and they didn't land a punch
8. 2012 - Underrated if you ask me. A pretty makeshift team got two wins (including a really fun one vs Sweden) and a draw in group, then really battled against a superior Italy team. Did its best.
9. 2006 - This is so low down even though, after 1990, this is, in my book, the closest England came to winning the World Cup. I genuinely think if Rooney wasn't sent off we'd have won this tournament. No other teams were that good, and England's defence, with Rio in his prime, was extremely solid. It still hadn't clicked and they were a kick away from the semis
10. 2016 - OK, some would have this lower because the Iceland game was pretty much the all-time low ebb, but I think this England team is underrated. It was a team on the up which played pretty well in group for a while, but got a bit confused, as young teams do. They'd played really great stuff on the way to the tournament, I think the 2016 thing needs to be reevaluated in the light of 2018
11. 1988 - So ...it was a tough tournament and they qualified really well ...
12. 2000 - Mad tournament this. Scored 5 goals in group, beat Germany, still didn't get through. Were 2-0 up to Portugal, then got gubbed. McManaman scored, then got injured. That was the only time, going in, that McManaman was going to be used properly be England. The Romania game is a classic disaster - Phil Neville .... aah
13. 1992 - A bit unlucky here too. Really deserved to beat France in the group game which ended 0-0. Then under too much pressure for the Sweden game. Brolin-Dahlin-Brolin
14. 2014 - The Costa Rica game was ... something. Really tough group. Actually played well in patches against Italy and Uruguay but ... callow
15. 1994 - Just ... i guess ... memorable ...and not quite as bad as ...
16. 2008 - this masterpiece in mismanagement. England hardly conceded any goals but failed to qualify. Scott Carson. Unbelievable. Steve McClaren.
17. 2010 - Just the worst, even though they reached the world cup last 16. Just dreadful in all three qualifiers and even worse in the match vs Germany. Yes, there's the Frank Lampard "goal" but, you know, the rest of it ...

And the Top 75 England players in the same period

1. Gary Lineker
2. Ashley Cole - the one guy who always did it in the tournaments
3. David Beckham
4. Wayne Rooney - I vacillated over who should go higher between Rooney and Gascoigne, but, you know, Rooney was more stellar in Euro 2004 than Gascoigne ever was, and the rest counts too
5. Sol Campbell
6. Paul Gascoigne - it's weird how England football throughout the 90s was basically people talking about the reasons my three favourite players - Gascoigne, Le Tissier, Giggs - weren't playing for England. Gascoigne's England record is pretty much exactly the same as Joe Cole's.
7. Rio Ferdinand - Rio was the best. If he'd managed his career to be a regular throughout the 2000s it would all have been very different
8. Michael Owen 
9. Peter Shilton
10. David Platt - probably the best England player of the early 90s
11. Alan Shearer
12. David Seaman
13. Steven Gerrard - he did actually have lots of good moments for England, to be fair, but i do think of his failures in 2004 and 2010 a lot
14. Stuart Pearce
15. Terry Butcher
16. John Terry
17. Bryan Robson - the thing is, everyone tells you how good Bryan Robson was, but I hardly remember seeing it, even though I did pretend to be Bryan Robson in the school playground, i think it was just an idea of Bryan Robson. And clearly, he was not one of the stars of the 86 and 90 World Cup
18. Frank Lampard
19. Harry Kane
20. Kyle Walker - is Walker not just class? I think he's a bit underrated, would get into any team in the world
21. Tony Adams
22. Joe Cole - England's best player in the 2006 World Cup, and has pretty much exactly the same England record as Gascoigne
23. Chris Waddle
24. Paul Ince
25. Jordan Henderson
26. Paul Scholes - perhaps lower than he needs to be, but was never quite his best for England
27. John Barnes - now I look back and wonder how much of the accepted wisdom that Barnes underperformed for England was true. Will never forget how he came on and almost turned the 1986 quarter-final
28. Gary Neville
29. Danny Welbeck
30. Peter Beardsley
31. Owen Hargreaves
32. Peter Crouch - Crouch's England record really is something - I don't know if anomaly is the right word, but it's certainly a talking point
33. Des Walker
34. Paul Robinson - was a really solid England keeper generally. His ludicrous dropping by McClaren was one of the great bad moments.
35. John Stones
36. Nicky Butt
37. Steve McManaman - 2000, that would have been McManaman's year. Started like a train against Portugal, scored, got injured, England lost and went out of the tournament.
38. Mark Wright
39. Darren Anderton
40. Harry Maguire
41. Teddy Sheringham
42. Jermain Defoe
43. Jesse Lingard
44. David Batty
45. Jordan Pickford
46. Kieran Trippier
47. Raheem Sterling - on his way up, there's no doubt, but really was quite bad in Euro 2016.
48. Adam Lallana - I think Lallana was the key guy in 2015-16 when Hodgson got England playing like a proper football team for the first time in many years.
49. Andros Townsend - remember when Andros Townsend was suddenly brilliant for England for a while
50. Eric Dier
51. Emile Heskey
52. Shaun Wright-Phillips
53. Dele Alli
54. Gary Stevens
55. Ashley Young
56. Theo Walcott
57. Gary Cahill
58. Trevor Sinclair -he and Danny Mills just came into the 2002 World Cup squad and did ok ... not to be sniffed at
59. Jamie Vardy
60. Gareth Southgate
61. James Milner
62. Ian Wright
63. Aaron Lennon
64. Trevor Steven
65. Graeme Le Saux
66. Marcus Rashford
67. Danny Mills
68. Darius Vassell
69. Joe Hart - had to be somewhere, but no one else has been quite so exposed by playing for England
70. Glen Johnson
71. Phil Jagielka
72. Wayne Bridge
73. Daniel Sturridge
74. Jack Wilshere
75. Phil Neville - aaah, Phil Neville's last few minutes against Romania in 2000. Aaaaaah