Shearer says England can rewrite World Cup pain against Argentina

Alan Shearer still measures England’s World Cup hopes against the pain of the 1998 defeat by Argentina, a match that remains one of the clearest reference points in the country’s tournament history. The former captain believes the current side have a chance to do more than erase a memory. They can change their lives forever.

Shearer speaks from the sharp end of that campaign. Glenn Hoddle made him England captain for the 1998 World Cup, after he had scored five goals in qualification and added two more in the finals themselves. That record gives his judgment unusual weight: he is not reflecting from a distance, but from inside the squad that lived through the loss that still shadows England’s past meetings with Argentina.

The 1998 match has endured because it was not just another knockout game. It became a defining moment, one that has been used ever since as shorthand for England’s World Cup frustration against Argentina. For Shearer, that history is exactly why the present team cannot afford to be trapped by it. The old pain is real, but it is not a script.

Shearer’s argument is that this group has a chance to write a different kind of England story, one shaped by what they do under pressure rather than by what happened in the past. His own tournament provides the context. As captain under Hoddle, he carried the expectation of a nation after scoring five times in qualification, then twice on the World Cup stage, only to see the campaign end against Argentina.

That combination of leadership, goals and disappointment is what makes his view matter now. The message is not about nostalgia or replaying old hurt for its own sake. It is about the possibility that a new England side can face Argentina without inheriting the same emotional collapse, and can turn one of the country’s most painful World Cup references into the moment that finally changes the story.