I was talking to my father about this (these days all we talk about is football) and he gives me three reasons (I call them excuses) why England won that game:
1) Geoff Hurst’s goal never crossed the line. This is the traditional German excuse. The referee becomes the scapegoat. Even Beckenbauer uses this excuse. To this day, he goes around saying something like this: “Bobby Charlton knows the truth – the ball did not go in.”
2) England should never have been in the finals. They took care of Pele and the Brazilians by hurting them physically. This was the worst display of hatchet jobs in the history of the World Cup. Everyone from Portugal to England made sure Brazil did not play their game.
3) Franz Beckenbauer was playing Bobby Charlton. By assigning Beckenbauer to Charlton, we focused on our opponents strength, not ours. In some ways we shot ourselves in the foot. Because Beckenbauer was playing to stop Charlton, he never truly played his own game. And that, says my father, is the real reason we lost in 1966.