The competition was a disaster, as England succumbed to tiredness to lose all three of their group games. Steven in the squad, missed the opening defeat to the Republic of Ireland, but played in the 3–1 defeat by the Netherlands, after which his pal Stevens was lambasted for some weak defending against Dutch centre forward Marco van Basten, who scored a memorable hat-trick. Steven stayed in the team for the now meaningless final group game against the 1–3 defeat against USSR, which was the worst performance of the lot, although he was unlucky not to give England the lead when his header hit the underside of the crossbar when the score was still 1–1.