In six weeks' time we will be basking in the afterglow of the 23rd World Cup final.
The unparalleled JEFF POWELL MBE has been to 12 of the previous 22, dating back to July 30, 1966, and England's finest hour at Wembley.
In those 12, ranging across four continents, he has seen 36 goals, five lots of extra time, two penalty shootouts and some of the greatest performances in the history of this sport – and that was just on the pitch.
This is his definitive ranking of the 12, with riotous tales of a life spent with a ringside seat to the greatest show on Earth.
12th: 1990 - West Germany 1 Argentina 0
Stadio Olimpico, Rome. Attendance: 73,603.
Diego Maradona was forcing himself to play virtually crippled.
Two days before the most cynical and distasteful of finals in Rome’s Olympic Stadium he rolled down his socks and showed a few of us the grotesquely swollen, gruesomely discoloured and throbbing ankles. The result of brutal tackling by Yugoslavia in the quarter-finals.
Having captained his country through a semi-final win which broke host nation Italy’s hearts, Maradona went out to play against Germany with boots cut open to accommodate his wounds. An 85th-minute penalty from Andreas Brehme put him and everyone else out of their misery.
The one shining consolation: this victory over opponents who remain unique for having two players sent off in a final enshrined Franz Beckenbauer in history as the first to win World Cups as captain and manager. No one begrudged Der Kaiser that distinction.
Diego Maradona played the 1990 World Cup final in boots that had to be cut open to ease his suffering
Andreas Brehme (left) struck the only goal, from the penalty spot in the 85th minute
11th: 1994 - Brazil 0 Italy 0 (Brazil win 3-2 on penalties)
Rose Bowl, Pasadena. Attendance: 94,164.
A World Cup of journalistic satisfaction for myself as I broke exclusively in Europe the news of Maradona’s failed drugs test on his Argentina comeback. Followed by his expulsion from the tournament after scoring against Greece.
In Maradona’s absence the final would become the only one ever to be goalless, even after extra time. How strange that any match involving the Brazilian standard-bearers for Pele’s Beautiful Game should be such a stinker.
Planet Football was ready to anoint Romario as superstar but he fluffed his lines in the afternoon heat of the Rose Bowl in the Pasadena quarter of Los Angeles, as the first World Cup in the USA petered out with our American cousins still unsold on soccerball.
A rather niggly and mostly slo-mo game was the first final to be decided on penalties, and Romario was one of three Brazilians out of four to convert. Italy captain Franco Baresi and the idolised Robert Baggio blazed their penalties over the bar either side of Daniele Massaro's spot-kick straight at Claudio Taffarel, and the Italians were greeted by rotten tomatoes when they arrived home.
RIP my great friend Hans Henningsen, the doyen of South American football reporters and commentators. We worked together on the Maradona story.
Roberto Baggio blazes his decisive penalty over the bar to hand Brazil the trophy
Romario with Brazil's fourth world title - after the only goalless final of the 22 World Cups
10th: 2014 - Germany 1 Argentina 0 (after extra time)
Maracana, Rio de Janeiro. Attendance: 74,738.
With England knocked out almost before the tournament began, the old rival powerhouses worked their way towards Germany becoming the first Europeans to lift a World Cup in the Americas.
Not that the goalless match itself reeked of significance. Not even in the hallowed setting of Rio’s Maracana. Had Brazil been out there playing like that, the Cariocas would have been restless.
Chances came and went untaken through the regulation hour and a half and well into extra time. Until Germany’s Mario Gotze controlled a loose cross with his chest and prodded the ball into the net.
A photograph of Lionel Messi gazing wistfully at the FIFA World Cup won the award for best media photograph. Fortunately for him there would be one more chance to come.
Lionel Messi trudges past the World Cup he was denied in 2014... but would go on to lift in Qatar eight years later
Mario Gotze fires past Sergio Romero of Argentina to win the World Cup for Germany, their first since reunification
9th: 1998 - France 3 Brazil 0
Stade de France, Paris. Attendance: 80,000.
This was billed as football’s world heavyweight title fight. Between Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane.
Mysteriously, at first, the Brazilian champion entered the Stade de France on legs desperately weakened. Ronaldo’s famous old friend Zico disclosed to a few of us over morning coffee on the Champs-Elysees that the Phenom had suffered a seizure – possibly an epileptic fit – in his hotel earlier on the morning of the final.
Ronaldo’s name was missing from the first Brazil teamsheet amid scenes of chaos in the dressing room. With half an hour to go he pronounced himself sufficiently well to play and his name was restored to a revised list.
Zidane took centre stage with two headed goals in the first half, and Arsenal's Emmanuel Petit finished off an ailing Brazil in injury time. Left-wing politicians in Paris acclaimed the multi-racial French team for a victory over the far right.
Every player was made a Chevalier (Knight) of the Legion d’Honneur. And still no knighthood for Bobby Moore!
Zinedine Zidane powers in his second headed goal of the 1998 World Cup final in Paris
8th: 2006 - Italy 1 France 1 (Italy win 5-3 on penalties)
Olympiastadion, Berlin. Attendance: 69,000.
Zidane at his best and ‘Zizou’ at his worst. Probably the greatest French player – sorry Michel Platini – went from hero to zero in Berlin.
Playing in the final match of his glorious career, he opened the scoring of a firecracker final with a seventh-minute penalty, chipped in off the bar. Marco Materazzi headed Italy’s equaliser midway through the first half but a state of irritation between him and Zidane festered into extra time.
There had been chances galore going on around them all night but as they jogged back alongside each other from a foiled French attack they clashed. Words were exchanged, some believed to be racially charged. As Materazzi pulled his shirt Zidane headbutted him in the chest and the Italian went down.
This brought the 14th red card of his career, his second during a World Cup. His career ended with him watching Italy score all five of their penalties in the shootout, while his team-mates converted only three of their four as David Trezeguet hit the bar.
Zidane used his head in a different way in 2006, ending his career in shame with a headbutt on Italy's Marco Materazzi
The iconic French midfielder walks past the World Cup after being sent off - and then had to watch his team-mates lose the penalty shootout
7th: 1982 - Italy 3 West Germany 1
Santiago Bernabeu, Madrid. Attendance: 90,000.
Enzo Bearzot’s revenge. Charming members of the original paparazzi spat at the feet of Italy’s gentleman manager as he led his players down the steps of their team hotel when it looked like they were heading for grim elimination during the most boring group matches ever.
What his critics had failed to discern was that Bearzot was in the process of changing the mentality of Italian football from the deeply negative catenaccio defence into his attacking philosophy. All while on the job in Spain.
He beat all the big names in the process. Argentina 2-1 in the second group phase. Then the astonishing victory over tournament favourites Brazil in which Paolo Rossi –pardoned as he was for match-fixing in Serie A – scored all three goals. Rossi secured the 1982 Golden Boot by opening the scoring in the final with his sixth of the tournament, then Marco Tardelli and Alessandro Altobelli put Italy three up before Paul Breitner scored a late, late consolation for the Germans.
But the real victory was Bearzot’s. At the press conference he uncorked champagne for every journalist.
His Italian vilifiers included as he exhorted them to the toast Forza Italia! What style.
Paolo Rossi (third left) bundles in the opening goal in the 1982 final to secure the Golden Boot
Enzo Bearzot, having been vilified throughout the group stages, is chaired off by his players having won Italy's third World Cup
6th: 1986 - Argentina 3 West Germany 2
Estadio Azteca, Mexico City. Attendance: 114,600.
The Hand of God and the Greatest Goal had propelled Diego Maradona past England in the quarter-final towards his destiny in Mexico’s Estadio Azteca.
Once there he was mostly stifled as an individual by the magnetic marking of Lothar Matthaus, a German legend in his own right, until he brilliantly set up the late winner for Jorge Burruchaga to give Argentina their second World Cup in three tournaments.
Captain Diego picked up the trophy and the acclamation.
Diego Maradona wins the World Cup, at the same Estadio Azteca where he had infuriated and bewildered England with the Hand of God and the Greatest Goal
5th: 2002 - Brazil 2 Germany 0
International Stadium, Yokohama. Attendance: 69,029.
The World Cup went to the Far East, taking with it the Great Ronaldo. Japan and South Korea brought excitement oriental-style to the making of FIFA history and with it intense local rivalry in their efforts to surpass each other as the perfect hosts.
Not for the first time Brazil beat everyone they met in the tournament, including England. In the final, the International Stadium in Yokohama was waiting for Ronaldo to confirm his status as El Fenomeno by claiming the Golden Boot.
That he did with a two-goal flourish and Brazil still stand supreme as the only five-time world champions.
Ronaldo wheels away after opening the scoring in Yokohama, pouncing on a mistake by Germany goalkeeper Oliver Kahn
4th: 1974 - West Germany 3 Netherlands 1
Olympiastadion, Munich. Attendance: 78,200.
Sheer class. Plus an English referee in hot water in steamy Munich.
This was supposed to be the occasion when Total Football as devised by genius manager Rinus Michels and interpreted by His Highness Johan Cruyff, which had swept European club football with Ajax, would be authenticated by World Cup glory.
Wolverhampton whistler Jack Taylor followed the narrative by awarding them a disputed penalty in the first minute before any German player had touched the ball, when Cruyff was deemed to have been brought down and Johan Neeskens delivered from the spot.
Was Taylor conscious of the controversy and making amends 25 minutes later when he ruled that Bernd Holzenbein had been brought down in the Dutch penalty area? By whom? Nobody seemed certain.
Breitner didn’t care as he equalised from the spot. Two minutes before half-time the legendary German striker Gerd Muller scored his last goal for his country.
Thereafter it was not the Dutch but Beckenbauer who delivered the masterclass, by presiding over affairs in a way Bobby Charlton had prevented him doing at Wembley eight years earlier.
Gerd Muller fires the winning goal for hosts West Germany. It was also the final goal of his illustrious international career
Franz Beckenbauer lifts the trophy aloft - he would go on to become the first man to win the World Cup as a player and a head coach
3rd: 1978 - Argentina 3 Netherlands 1 (after extra time)
Estadio Monumental, Buenos Aires. Attendance: 71,483.
Dutch genius Cruyff refused to travel to Argentina because of death threats to him and his family if he did. But this epic comes third on the list not least because the final climaxed a tournament engulfed in an atmosphere of unprecedented patriotic fervour.
A frenzy generated by Argentina’s desperation to join, at long last, neighbours Brazil and Uruguay in South America’s pantheon of world champions. Argentina always seem to be cloaked in controversy and this was no exception.
Eyebrows were raised at the 6-0 win that saw them through to the final, having needed a four-goal victory and following a visit to the Peru dressing room minutes before kick-off by Argentine military dictator General Jorge Videla – though the men from Lima twice hit the inside of a post when the scores were level.
Then, as the teams entered the Estadio Monumental, Argentine officials objected to Dutch forward Rene van de Kerkhof wearing a ’dangerous’ solid plaster-cast on a fractured wrist. The referee let him play after additional wrapping in soft bandage.
Ossie Ardiles poured a formidable hour into midfield which would clinch his historic transfer to Tottenham and during which Argentina took the lead through pre-Maradona superstar Mario Kempes, who also scored one of the two extra-time goals which condemned the Netherlands to a second successive World Cup final defeat.
So tightly jammed was the parking outside that the only way to reach downtown was by walking over roofs of cars and trucks. Yet the celebrations were so joyfully without incident that the following morning the chief of police announced: ‘There were six million people in the beating heart of Buenos Aires last night… and not a glass was broken.’
Mario Kempes scores his second goal of the 1978 final to make it 2-1 in extra time and put Argentina on course for their first world title
2nd: 1970 - Brazil 4 Italy 1
Estadio Azteca, Mexico City. Attendance: 107,412.
The crowning of the greatest team ever to take the field, these winners of the third of Brazil’s record five World Cup triumphs.
Having defeated everyone they encountered in Mexico, World Cup defendants England included, the maestros in yellow and green were orchestrated in Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca by the greatest footballer of all time.
Edson Arantes do Nascimento – Pele to all – announced his presence with a brilliant opening goal. Roberto Boninsegna rallied the Italians, who had beaten England’s conquerors West Germany in the semi-finals, to draw level.
Gerson and Jairzinho powered Brazil into a 3-1 lead. Then came the most exquisite assist for one of the most glorious goals in World Cup history.
At the apex of a dazzling nine-man move Pele feigned left as if to shoot, but passed right with such precision and perfect pace that his overlapping captain Carlos Alberto could unleash a thunderbolt into the far corner of the Italian net without breaking stride.
Enshrine these 11 names in the memory: Felix the Cat, Carlos Alberto, Brito, Piazza, Everaldo, Clodoaldo, Gerson, Jairzinho, Rivellino, Tostao, Pele. No substitutes required.
The great Pele is hoisted aloft at the Azteca after winning his third World Cup - still a record
1st: 1966 - England 4 West Germany 2 (after extra time)
Wembley Stadium, London. Attendance: 96,924.
Our one and only World Cup glory. How can this not top the list of any Englishman?
Least of all this one who watched his beloved friend Bobby Moore wipe his muddy hands on the velvet rail of Wembley’s Royal Box before collecting the Jules Rimet Trophy from the Queen’s white-gloved hands.
Saw him hold the original golden prize aloft on the balcony of the Royal Garden Hotel to the delirium of thousands in Kensington High Street. Went on for a few late night beers together in his favourite West End pub.
Bobby Moore lifts the Jules Rimet Trophy after England beat West Germany 4-2 in 1966 at Wembley
Geoff Hurst scores what may be the most controversial World Cup goal ever - there is still no evidence it crossed the line, despite what linesman Tofiq Bahramov ruled
And what a final it was, with the West Ham triumvirate at its axis. England fall behind. Geoff Hurst equalises from a telepathic Moore free-kick. Martin Peters fires England ahead. Germany equalise in the last minute.
Extra time: Hurst hits the underside of bar and an Azerbaijani linesman flags a goal for which there has never been proof that the ball crossed the line.
Moore launches a pass from his penalty area which sends Hurst galloping the length of the pitch to complete the first hat-trick in a World Cup final. Ninety-six-thousand plus think it’s all over. It is then.
Manager Alf Ramsey instructs assistant Harold Shepherdson to act with decorum, stop celebrating and sit back down in the dugout. How very English.
