Frank Lampard’s ghost goal and the thrashing by Germany

Bloemfontein, South Africa, 2010. England are playing Germany for a place in the World Cup quarter-finals. Ugh. The dissonant, atonal droning of vuvuzelas fills your ears. Ugh. Fabio Capello. Ugh. Fabio Capello is sitting on the bench with a face like a melted waxwork AND he’s playing Steven Gerrard on the left wing. Double ugh. Germany’s Mesut Ozil is in on goal within four minutes. UGH.

Somehow, impossibly, it gets even worse from there.

It’s not unusual for England fans to feel a genuine sense of injustice at major tournaments. Both David Beckham and Wayne Rooney received red cards that were just as much a result of overzealous dramatisation from the opposing team as they were from the initial moment of idiocy themselves. Or at least that’s how we like to frame it.

Furthermore, losing on penalties can rarely if ever be interpreted as an injustice, as the force of the footballing gods conspiring against you, but somehow we managed to brand them like that too, such is our ungodly habit of crashing out of World Cups and European championships via spot kicks on a regular basis.

In terms of emotional baggage, we already have all that to moan about. Rightly or wrongly (definitely wrongly). But then there’s Frank Lampard’s goal against Germany, which was, let’s be honest, a total and utter travesty. A crime against football. A debacle. A scandal. A nonsense of the highest order.

While we, as a nation, have an inherent tendency to overreact, this was perhaps the one occasion that we were well within our rights to light the torches and grab our pitchforks.

Let’s take a look back at it and relive all that pain and trauma, shall we?

Harry Symeou hosts Semra Hunter, Andy Headspeath & Toby Cudworth to look back on South Africa ’10 as part of the ‘Our World Cups’ series. We take a trip down memory lane – join us!

If you can’t see the podcast embed, click here to download the episode in full!

Germany take the lead in under 20 minutes through a brilliantly executed team move. Honestly, the quality of football is staggering. Manuel Neuer hoofs a long ball aimlessly up the pitch, John Terry and Matthew Upson forget where they are, who they are and what sport they are playing, and Miroslav Klose wriggles in to slide tackle past David James. Phenomenal stuff. Really, really good. Sometimes you just have to sit back and applaud the sheer artistry on show. Hats off, Germany. Truly. I’m not bitter at all.

Ugh. The vuvuzelas.

12 minutes later and England’s problems double….