England will play just their second competitive fixture at Berlin’s Olympiastadion when they meet Spain on Sunday with Euro 2024 glory at stake.
Five of the team’s previous visits to the venue and its predecessor on the same site, the Deutsches Stadion, have been for friendly encounters, but this time, the stakes could hardly be higher.
Here, the PA news agency takes a look at England’s record in Berlin.
May 10, 1930 (friendly): Germany 3 England 3
May 14, 1938 (friendly): Germany 3 England 6
Sir Stanley Matthews, born 1 Feb 1915, played 54 times for England and scored 11 goals http://t.co/K159tIrjuL pic.twitter.com/6DgDbWIvYJ
— England (@England) February 1, 2015
Playing at the Olympiastadion, which had been rebuilt for the 1936 summer Olympic Games, in front of Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess and Joseph Goebbels, but not Adolf Hitler, the England players had been controversially ordered by the Foreign Office to give the Nazi salute before kick-off in an effort to further Anglo-German relations. On the pitch, the visitors stormed to victory courtesy of a double from Jackie Robinson and goals from Cliff Bastin, Frank Broome, Len Goulden and a fine solo effort from the great Stanley Matthews with Rudi Gellesch, Jupp Gauchel and Hans Pesser replying for the Germans.
May 26, 1956 (friendly): West Germany 1 England 3
May 13, 1972 (European Championship qualifier quarter-final, second leg): West Germany 0 England 0
44 years ago. Germany won the final of #EURO1972 against Soviet Union #EURO2016 pic.twitter.com/hQtblCqn12
— Franz Beckenbauer (@beckenbauer) June 18, 2016
Trailing 3-1 from the first leg at Wembley, in which Uli Hoeness, Gunter Netzer and Gerd Muller had scored for the visitors and Francis Lee for Sir Alf Ramsey’s men, England needed something special in Berlin. In the event, they did not get it as a German team marshalled superbly by Franz Beckenbauer held out amid a physical assault later described by manager Helmut Schoen as “brutal” in torrential rain to deny World Cup winners Gordon Banks, Bobby Moore, Alan Ball and Martin Peters a trip to the tournament, where their conquerors would prevail.
November 19, 2008 (friendly): Germany 1 England 2
March 26, 2016 (friendly): Germany 2 England 3
Together for #England. pic.twitter.com/0IiNWazwij
— England (@England) March 26, 2016
Eric Dier did the damage as the visitors came from behind to snatch a memorable victory over the 2014 World Cup winners. Goals from Toni Kroos and Mario Gomez appeared to have put the Germans in the driving seat, but Harry Kane and, with his first international goal, Jamie Vardy dragged the visitors back into it before Dier headed them to a victory later soured by the news that starting keeper Jack Butland had fractured his ankle.
