Celebrating Germany 1-5 England, the Golden Generation’s night of glory

Twenty-one years on, England’s momentous 5-1 victory over Germany in 2001 is remembered vividly by all who witnessed it and revered as arguably the Three Lions’ greatest-ever performance.

But the context surrounding that World Cup qualifier, the sheer size of the task England faced that night, is perhaps no longer fully appreciated.

Germany were the unbeaten leaders of the qualification group for the 2002 World Cup in which they had been matched with England.

Eleven months earlier, they had beaten England 1-0 in the final game at the old Wembley Stadium, forcing the humiliated resignation of manager Kevin Keegan. They had lost just one of their last sixty qualifiers and were unbeaten in Munich since 1973.

Going into the game at Bayern’s Olympiastadion, then, England – led by their first foreign manager, the Swede Sven-Goran Eriksson, in just his fourth competitive fixture in charge – had no designs on a blowout victory. In fact, they’d have happily taken a draw.

“It was gradually building up and everyone was expecting we were playing for second place, because Germany were six points in front of us,” Gary Lewin, the England team’s physio between 1996 and 2017, says.

“The expectation was that, worst-case scenario, we nick a draw and go on to need a draw in the last game. So the build-up was quite relaxed. We were under no pressure because the expectation wasn’t there.

“Sven had this great way of relaxing people. He was a very relaxed manager. He liked the squad to be relaxed. It was a fantastic atmosphere and nobody could dream we would go on and do what we did, but we went into the game quite confident.”

Eriksson’s demeanour and pre-match approach was one familiar to Lewin, who, in addition to his duties for the national team, served as Arsenal’s physio for more than two decades.

He noticed distinct parallels between England’s Swedish manager and his boss at club level, Arsene Wenger: “They both liked the players to be able to relax. They both liked the players to play relaxed. They both liked players to express themselves.

“Arsene was very much, ‘You train the way you play.’ Sven was a little more laid back in training. This was probably a bit more of the Italian coming out in him [having previously managed in Serie A, with Sampdoria and Lazio].

“He had an Italian who’d do all the fitness work, and he almost used to separate the fitness work from the football work, so that was slightly different. But the…