After the magnificent football England had produced at the 1990 world cup finals, Graham Taylor took over the England' manager post from Bobby Robson. His first big change was installing Gary Lineker as captain. His first match in charge was a game against Hungary in a friendly at Wembley. They got off to a tremendous start beating Hungary 1-0 with his new captain, Gary Lineker, scoring the only goal of the match. His next match, in front of a 77000 capacity crowd, saw his team make hard work of beating an inept polish side. Lineker scored the opening goal in the 39th minute and Peter Beardsley scored a stunning strike shortly before the end, to give Taylor’s team the leading edge in the group. England drew both home and away with the Republic of Ireland and somehow scraped 1-0 victories against Turkey at Izmir and Wembley, goals by Alan Smith, Dennis Wise and great saves by goalkeeper Chris Woods against Turkey saved them from real embarrassment. England went into their last game away at Poland knowing a draw will secure them qualification. In what proved to be a fine night for Graham Taylor, Poland started off the better of the two football nations, They took the lead from a 40 yard strike in the 32nd minute and England could have fell further behind on several occasions. However with just 13 minutes remaining, David Rocastle took a corner for England, it was met by the head of Gary Mabbett and England's captain, Gary Lineker, scored the equalizer from five yards out and England were through to the football finals in Sweden.
The European Championships saw Graham Taylor's career as the England manager hit rock bottom, England traveled to Sweden with confidence, knowing that they were in the weaker of the two groups. England's first two matches against Denmark and France were certainly unmemorable, the English performances were so poor they did not look like they deserved to progress. Their final match against the hosts, Sweden, ended in disaster, after a brilliant start with David Platt scoring after only three minutes, Eriksson equalized for Sweden and after Taylor bafflingly took off Gary Lineker in replacement for Alan Smith, Sweden instantly scored through Thomas Brolin. England lost 2-1 and were out of Euro 92.
England put on two fine performances in their opening qualification matches for the 1994 world cup finals; however the fine performances did not result in victory, they drew 1-1 with Norway and drew 2-2 against Holland, after John Barnes and David Platt gave England a spectacular 2-0 lead. Gascoigne was back at his best in England's 4-0 hammering over Turkey. England stumbled badly during May 1993 as they lost to Norway in Oslo and qualification for the finals looked a distance away. Worse was in store for England and Taylor as they were embarrassingly defeated by USA in their American tour and defeat against Germany made matter's worse. When England faced Holland in Rotterdam in October 1993, a draw would have probably secured their passage to America; instead they lost 2-0 and had no chance of qualifying. England should have been awarded a penalty and the Dutch goal scorer, Ronald Koeman should have been sent off for a foul on David Platt; however they lost and failed to qualify. England won their final match against European minnows San Marino 7-1; however England were 1-0 down after only 8 seconds! Taylor resigned few days after the encounter against San Marino and Terry Venables was installed as the new England manager shortly after.