England have always let themselves down by picking the wrong squads, managers and systems. Add to that poor discipline and over reliance on injured players.
82 it was Brooking, Robson and Keegan. We've had it more recently in 98 (discipline) and 2002 with Beckham (injury will he won't he?). In 2006 with Rooney and the metartarssal.
Biggest disappointment for me was 94. I was 9 years old and it was the first World Cup that I remember properly. Taylor had an endless reserve of players from top clubs at the time and picked some rubbish during qualification. We had some quality like Steve Bruce, Pallister, Sharp from Man Utd. We had Winterburn, Adams, Keown, Bould, Dixon ,Merson and Wright at Arsenal. Mcmanaman and Fowler at Liverpool. Pearce and Collymore at Nottingham Forest. Sheringham at Tottenham and Shearer at Blackburn. Beardsley, Lee, Clark, Beresford and Cole at Newcastle. We somehow contrived not to qualify.
2010 and 2014 were just rubbish. Although i think we'd have gone and beat the Germans had Lampard's goal stood.