A brilliant idea for a thread.
I mentioned previously watching Italy-Brazil from 1982. I thought that a superb game, and Italy struck me as good value for their win - albeit helped by dire Brazilian goalkeeping and Serginho leading the Brazil forward line like a lump. That Brazil team was exciting to watch, but by modern standards they looked almost devoid of structure in possession. If nothing else, there's historical interest in seeing the ridiculous amount of foul play Gentile was allowed to get away with, mostly towards Zico. A useful reminder of how little protection football gave even its biggest stars back then.
A few other games I've watched: Scotland 0, Brazil 0, 1974 World Cup. Brazil were terrible and dirty, without a midfield worthy of the name. Had Scotland treated them with less reverence, they may have achieved an historic victory.
Scotland 3, Holland 2, 1978 World Cup. A famous win for the Scots, in which Graeme Souness was so dominant in midfield you marvelled that he wasn't selected in their first two games (the 3-1 defeat to Peru and 1-1 draw with Iran that did for them). Whisper it, but I don't think the Dutch really exerted themselves too much in this game, from which they didn't even need a point - particularly after a defensive mess gifted them a penalty and a 1-0 lead that left Scotland needing to score four to eliminate them.
Wales 3, Scotland 0, Home Nations Championship 1979. Scotland's centre backs, Paul Hegarty and Alan Hansen, both made terrible errors that helped John Toshack score a hat-trick. Scotland had the better individuals, but not the team.
A recurrent theme of those Scotland games was their inability to build a balanced team, especially in terms of playing to Kenny Dalglish's strengths. Their most effective striker was Joe Jordan - but he was rather too blunt a tool to suit the ballplayers behind him. Another problem was a tendency to play central midfielders out wide, leaving them too reliant on full-backs to provide width. And the use of Danny McGrain, their outstanding right back, as a left back against Brazil in 1974, was farcical in conception and outcome.
England 3, Cameroon 2, 1990 World Cup. England were awful. Anyone who thinks Bobby Robson belongs in the first rank of managers needs to watch a game like this and see the organisational fiasco he inflicted on his players.
England 1, West Germany 1, 1990 World Cup. England played real football in the first half. Gascoigne, Platt, Waddle and Lineker's movement was hugely impressive (Beardsley made less impact). In the second half they played virtually no football at all, and the introduction of Trevor Steven to play left wing, and allow Stuart Pearce to overlap, hardly helped. West Germany were unimpressive throughout (Thomas Haessler impressed, though, while he was on the field). Extra time provided more incident for the simple reason that everyone was knackered and huge tracts of space opened up. Overall, however, it reinforced a sense that in 1990 the world sank to England's level rather more than England elevated themselves.