Bobby Robson's last match as England manager and Peter Shilton's final game as England goalkeeper ended in a defeat by Italy that was partly self-inflicted in this play-off for third place.  Shilton, captain for the night as he stretched his world-record collection of caps to 125, will remember his farewell performance for all the wrong reasons. The man who had been one of the most reliable players in the history of English football made a calamitous mistake in the seventieth minute. He had just taken possession of the ball and elected to roll it along the ground as he looked for an England player to whom he could pass it. Shilts must have been the only person in the stadium who did not see Roberto Baggio loitering alongside him. Shilton virtually placed the ball at Baggio's feet and he exchanged passes with Salvatore Schillaci before dribbling his way across the face of the England goal and scoring with a close-range shot. Ten minutes after Shilton's error the skilful, Australian-born Tony Dorigo made an enterprising run down the left wing before sending over a measured cross. David Platt, who had been making penetrating bursts into the Italian penalty area throughout the game, powered the ball into the net from twelve yards for one of the best headed goals of the whole tournament. Paul Parker was adjudged to have fouled Salvatore Schillaci when they became tangled in the penalty area in the eighty-fourth minute. Schillaci, needing one goal to become the leading marksman of World Cup '90, sent Shilton the wrong way as he drilled in  his sixth goal of the finals. England had lost, but their dignity and their pride were still intact. They had done England in general and Bobby Robson in particular proud. Could Graham Taylor go one better and reach the World Cup Final? 'I wish him luck,' said Bobby Robson. 'I just hope the press are kinder to him than they were to me.' Graham Taylor should have been warned not to hold his breath.

Source Notes

TheFA.com
Original newspaper reports
Original television broadcast
Rothman's Yearbooks
Mike Payne's England: The Complete Post-War Record (Breedon Books Publishing Company, Derby, U.K., 1993)
Norman Giller, Football Author
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CG