England take on Argentina for a place in the World Cup final on Wednesday evening with the winners set to take on Spain in New Jersey on Sunday, 19 July.
For England, it marks one of the biggest games in their recent history, perhaps even since they won the World Cup in 1966.
Many England fans will still remember the last time they reached this stage of the competition, with it only coming eight years ago, but the reality is it doesn’t come around all that often.
How many times have England been in the World Cup semi-final?
Thomas Tuchel’s men have battled their way to this position, and will make a small piece of history regardless of the outcome.
When England kick-off against Argentina in Atlanta on Wednesday evening, it will be just the fourth time ever they will have ever played in a World Cup semi-final.
England’s first ever appearance in a World Cup semi-final was in 1966, the year they lifted the Jules Rimet trophy in front of a packed out Wembley crowd.
In the semi-final they beat Portugal, who had Eusebio, ranked at no.16 in FourFourTwo’s list of the greatest players of all time, in their ranks. However, Bobby Charlton’s brace was enough to see England through that day.
English football fans would have to wait 24 years before seeing another appearance from the nation in the semi-finals. It came in Turin, Italy, against West Germany.
England were knocked out on penalties with Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle missing the decisive spotkicks to send West Germany through to play Argentina in the final.
They had to wait even longer for their next semi-final, which came in 2018. Much was made of England’s fabled ‘Golden Generation’, but they constantly came up short at the World Cup, only managing to reach the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006.
In 2018, where Kieran Trippier scored an unbelievable free-kick against Croatia to have Gareth Southgate and Co. 1-0 up inside five minutes in Moscow. They went on to lose the game 2-1 with Mario Mandzukic scoring a 109th minute winner.
Just once have the Three Lions advanced to the final in three attempts, with Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham and the rest of the class of ‘26 hopeful they can avoid the same fate as years gone by against Argentina.