- published: 26 Mar 2016
- views: 3863
The England national football team represents England in association football and is controlled by the Football Association, the governing body for football in England. England is the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside Scotland, whom they played in the world's first international football match in 1872. Although most national football teams represent a sovereign state, England is one of the United Kingdom's Home Nations, meaning that it is permitted by FIFA statutes to maintain its own national side that competes in all major professional tournaments, with the exception of the Olympic Games. England's home ground is Wembley Stadium in London and their manager is Roy Hodgson.
England are one of eight national teams to have won the FIFA World Cup, which they did in 1966 when they hosted the finals. They defeated West Germany 4–2 in extra time in the final. Since then, their best performance at a World Cup was a fourth place finish in 1990. They reached the semi-finals of the UEFA European Championship in 1968 and 1996. They were the most successful of the Home Nations in the British Home Championship with 54 wins (including 20 shared wins) before the competition was suspended in 1984.
England i/ˈɪŋɡlənd/ is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, while the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separate it from continental Europe. Most of England comprises the central and southern part of the island of Great Britain in the North Atlantic. The country also includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.
The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Palaeolithic period, but it takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in AD 927, and since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century, has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world. The English language, the Anglican Church, and English law—the basis for the common law legal systems of many other countries around the world—developed in England, and the country's parliamentary system of government has been widely adopted by other nations. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the world's first industrialised nation. England's Royal Society laid the foundations of modern experimental science.