Updates and news

The aim of this website is to collect all knowledge and analyse every aspect of Italia'90. The site is a work in progress, with also published material being continuously revised. We will only begin publishing match reports from the 1990 World Cup tournament when all qualifiers have been covered. We are currently (February 2020) working on UEFA qualifiers Group 5 and also cautiously stepping across the Atlantic in order to have a closer look at the CONMEBOL section of the Italia '90 qualification.

Next up:

– Norway v Yugoslavia, June 1989 qualifier
– Belgium v Yugoslavia, May 1989 friendly
– Norway v France, September 1989 qualifier

To receive updates on twitter, please follow @1990qual (kaltz) and @1990worldcup (Domizio).

Scotland 0-2 England (friendly)

27 May 1989, Glasgow: Some sections of English media had claimed in the build-up to the game that Scotland was hardly the ideal opponent at the time, considering the importance of next week's World Cup qualifier against Poland. They'd have wanted a more 'playing' team to better prepare the English for the Polish, who at the time appeared to be something of an unknown quantity. Poland had obviously lost in Sweden early in the month, but this had only been their second game of the qualification. England very much needed to win, and there was pressure to do so, as ever among the media when the national team were about to play. Read more . . .

Austria 1-2 Czechoslovakia (friendly)

11 April 1989, Graz: Czechoslovakia are a big, physical team which rarely concedes a lot of opportunities against. This is a fine game for them to practice ahead of their very difficult upcoming trip to Brussels to play Belgium. Certainly one of the most interesting aspects about them on this occasion is seeing how the two 'returnees', defenders Ján Kocian and František Straka, will fare: Will they prove to further bolster an already decent defensive, or will they perhaps rather disrupt the organization which team manager Dr. Jozef Vengloš continues to emphasise in order to make Czechoslovakia a difficult team to beat? They are both starters, and they appear to be part of a five man defensive line. Read more...

From the news archives

One of the last qualifiers covered at italia1990.com is Iceland v Soviet Union (31 August 1988) from UEFA Group 3, provided by our writer kaltz. In addition, we give you the front page of the Icelandic newspaper Tíminn on 1 September 1988: Its headline was not so much the result of the game, as the naked person who entered the field. This is allegedly the first time this phenomenon was witnessed on a sporting venue on the island. Insular innocence stolen.

(Thanks to @WC1930blogger for notifying us.)

Group 7 Quiz

Who was Belgium's regular libero in the 1990 qualifiers? And who's the player in the middle in the picture to the right? Test your UEFA qualification group 7 knowledge with our new group 7 quiz. Difficulty level: Difficult . . .

Read more . . .

About

Italia1990.com is a website dedicated to the 1990 FIFA World Cup. With the aim to collect all knowledge and analyse every aspect of Italia'90, this website will for a considerable time be a work in progress. The website publishes everything worth to know not only about the World Cup tournament itself, but also its build-up, including the qualification stage. While match info and statistics are important, this website will also stress match reports, anecdotes and analyses. Two writers are currently engaged in the project, kaltz (@1990qual) and domizio (@1990worldcup).

This website, italia1990.com, is non-commercial and unofficial, and not affiliated to FIFA. Header image: The sky above Stadio Olimpico, and the area around the stadium (1989).