John Barnes scored one of the all-time great England goals to inspire this remarkable victory over Brazil just a week after the team had been booed off at Wembley. Terry Fenwick and Mark Hateley combined to feed the ball out to Barnes on the left wing in the last minute of the first-half. He set off on a zig-zagging thirty-five-yard run, outsmarting four defenders on the way and then wrong-footing two outstanding players in Costa and Junior before virtually walking the ball into the net. It was  an incredible goal that had 'made-in-Brazil' written all over it, and it was such a confidence booster for England that they more than held their own in the second-half after Peter Shilton's brilliance had helped curb an attempted fight back by the Brazilians. It was Barnes who set up the second knock-out goal in the sixty-fifth minute when his cross to the far post was headed so powerfully by Mark Hateley that goalkeeper Roberto Costa could only help it across the line. Clive Allen came on for his debut in the seventy-sixth minute in place of the tiring Tony Woodcock, and with his first touch he almost set up a third goal for Bryan Robson, who sent the ball inches wide of a post. It was Brazil's first home defeat for more than a quarter of a century, and reward for Bobby Robson's courage in sticking to a 4-2-4 formation in the land where the system was born. Norwich centre-half Dave Watson won the first of his twelve caps in place of appendicitis-vićtim Graham Roberts. A delighted Bobby Robson said: 'You could live to be a hundred and not see a better goal that Barnsie scored. It was the sort of goal only Brazilians are supposed to score. Fantastic!'

Source Notes

TheFA.com
Original newspaper reports
World Soccer, August 1984
Rothman's Yearbooks
Mike Payne's England: The Complete Post-War Record (Breedon Books Publishing Company, Derby, U.K., 1993)
Norman Giller, Football Author
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CG