England's 50 years of hurt

The ESPN FC crew weigh in on England's narrow 1-0 victory over a 10-man Portugal side.Fifty years of hurt. To narrow half a century down to just one emotion -- hope, dejection, despair, indifference or indignation, to suggest a few -- would have been a tricky task for whoever decided to start counting the years of underachievement. In picking apart the anatomy of England's consistent failures since 1966, the year they won the World Cup, there are several recurring themes: penalty shootouts, qualification crises, refereeing injustice, agonising misses and England simply being outclassed.

Managers have come and gone, often cruelly. Generations of players have failed to deliver on their…