The knockout stage of the

1990 FIFA World Cup The 1990 FIFA World Cup was the 14th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was held from 8 June to 8 July 1990 in Italy, the second country to host the event for a second time (the first being ...

was the second and final stage of the final tournament, following the group stage. It began on 23 June with the round of 16 matches, and ended on 8 July with the

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of con ...

held at the Stadio Olimpico in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, in which

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 ...

beat the defending champions

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...

1–0 to claim their third World Cup. Sixteen teams advanced to the knockout stage to compete in a

single-elimination A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final mat ...

style tournament: The top two teams from each of the six groups, as well as the best four third-placed teams. In the round of 16, the four third-placed teams played against four of the group winners from group A-D, with the remaining two group winners from group E and F taking on two of the group runners-up; the remaining four runners-up were paired off against each other. The winners of the eight round of 16 matches were then paired together in the quarter-finals, the winners of which played against each other in the semi-finals. The ties in each round were played over a single match; in the event that scores were level after 90 minutes, the teams would play an additional 30 minutes of extra time, divided into two 15-minute halves, to determine the winner. If the scores remained level after extra time, the teams would contest a penalty shootout. A third place match was also held on the day before the final, between the two losing teams of the semi-finals.

Qualified teams

The top two placed teams from each of the six groups, plus the four best-placed third teams, qualified for the knockout stage. Based on group results, the matches would be the following in Round of 16: The pairings for matches 1, 4, 6 and 7 depend on who the best third places are that qualify for the round of 16. The following table published in Section 28 of the tournament regulations, shows the different options to define the opponents for the winners of groups A, B, C and D.

Bracket

Round of 16

''All times listed are local (

UTC+1 UTC+01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2019-02-07T23:28:34+01:00. This time is used in: *Central European Time *West Africa Time *Western European Summer Time **B ...

)''

Cameroon vs Colombia

Czechoslovakia vs Costa Rica

Brazil vs Argentina

Brazil dominated for most of the match, but

Diego Maradona Diego Armando Maradona (; 30 October 196025 November 2020) was an Argentine professional football player and manager. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, he was one of the two joint winners of the F ...

went on a trademark run from the halfway line to the edge of the penalty area late in the match, and found Claudio Caniggia, who rounded the onrushing

Cláudio Taffarel Cláudio André Mergen Taffarel (; born 8 May 1966) is a Brazilian retired footballer who played as a goalkeeper, and is the goalkeeping coach of English Premier League club Liverpool and the Brazil national team. During an 18-year career he p ...

to give Argentina a lead that they would not relinquish.

West Germany vs Netherlands

Republic of Ireland vs Romania

Italy vs Uruguay

Spain vs Yugoslavia

England vs Belgium

Quarter-finals

Argentina vs Yugoslavia

Republic of Ireland vs Italy

Czechoslovakia vs West Germany

Cameroon vs England

Apart from anything else, it was the only quarter-final to produce more than one goal. Despite Cameroon's heroics earlier in the tournament, David Platt put England ahead in the 25th minute. At half-time, Cameroon brought Milla on, and the game was turned on its head in five second-half minutes. First Cameroon were awarded a penalty, from which

Emmanuel Kunde Immanuel ( he, עִמָּנוּאֵל, 'Īmmānū'ēl, meaning, "God is with us"; also romanized: , ; and or in Koine Greek of the New Testament) is a Hebrew name that appears in the Book of Isaiah (7:14) as a sign that God will protect the H ...

scored the equaliser. Then, in the 65th minute,

Eugene Ekeke Eugene may refer to: People and fictional characters * Eugene (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Eugene (actress) (born 1981), Kim Yoo-jin, South Korean actress and former member of the sin ...

put Cameroon ahead. The African team came within eight minutes of reaching the semi-finals, but then they conceded a penalty, which Gary Lineker gratefully converted. Midway through extra time, England were awarded another penalty, which Lineker again scored from the spot. England were through to the semi-finals for the first time in 24 years. Yet England had grossly underestimated Cameroon's threat, despite the Indomitable Lions defeating then World Champions

in the tournament's opening game and easily seeing off a highly-fancied

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the ...

in the Round of 16. Howard Wilkinson was observing Cameroon's progress for England and informed the players that this quarter-final match represented "A practical bye to the semi-finals".

Chris Waddle Christopher Roland Waddle (born 14 December 1960) is an English former professional football player and manager. He currently works as a commentator. Nicknamed "Magic Chris", football journalist Luke Ginnell wrote that Waddle was "widely ackn ...

, emerging afterwards, was reported to have told Wilkinson: "Some fucking bye that". England would not face African opposition in the knockout stage of a World Cup again until 2022's Round of 16 encounter with Senegal.Brewin, John
"How England 'pulled it out of the fire' against Milla's Cameroon at Italia 90"
''The Observer''. 3 December 2022.

Semi-finals

Argentina vs Italy

West Germany vs England

Third place play-off

Final

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:1990 Fifa World Cup Knockout Stage

Knockout Stage A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final mat ...

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicis ...

Knockout stage A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final mat ...