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Mail us with your questions and answers
“England qualified for the World Cup in perfect style, winning all eight games without conceding a goal,” writes Charlie Wilson. “How many teams have done this?”
This isn’t the first time England have qualified for a World Cup without conceding a goal. They did the same ahead of Italia 90 – but three of their six group games were 0-0 draws and they might not have qualified had Poland’s Rysard Tarasiewicz scored in the last minute of their final game in Chorzow. Instead his heatseeker hit the crossbar and England were through.
There are dozens of examples of perfect campaigns across the men’s and women’s games, especially in the early days when qualification groups were smaller. In 1934, for example, Italy qualified after beating Greece 4-0 in their only game. Greece chose not to play the return match and Italy went on to win the whole tournament. With that – and research time – in mind, we’ve restricted the answer to a) European qualification only and b) teams who played at least five games.
