Bringing the World Cup into your front room!

World Cup Italia '90 - Sega Master System

 

So, 1990 - I was 9. The World Cup was important, I wasn't too sure why, I just knew I wanted some of the action.

1990 was the last World Cup where a player could safely pass the ball back to his keeper to pick up - this led to many teams playing a very defensive and time wasting style game, trying to not win the game in conventional play but chance their luck in penalty shoot-outs.

The final four teams in that years World Cup were England, Argentina, West Germany & Italy.

England would lose 4-3 to West Germany on penalties and Italy would have a similar fate against Argentina.

This set up for a final between West Germany & Argentina. 

This final, famous for being the first final to see a red card (Pedro Monzon for a foul on Jurgen Klinsmann) would only see one goal, a penalty, awarded in the 85th minute to West Germany.

So the World Cup ended, the kids were on their summer holidays and desperate to recreate the thrill of the magical game, when along came the (then) beautiful Sega game World Cup Italia '90.

Available on the Mega Drive (Genesis to our US cousins) & the Master System, along came a game you could make your NES & Snes loving friends jealous with.

This footballing top down game provided many indoor hours for the remainder of my summer holidays and weekends to come. Friends would come over and play winner stays on, often games would result in fights, sparked by the games lack of foul detection.

I had this game on the Sega Master System as I wasn't 'cool' enough to own a Mega Drive at the time.

The Master System version offers you shoot & pass, while the Mega Drive has low pass, high pass & shoot (Both with an array of headers, overhead kicks and tackles).

Of the 8-bit / 16-bit generation I simply do not know of a football game which caused so many arguments and enjoyment at the same time.

Check out our video of (us) England taking on (cpu) Scotland!

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