From England's doomed heroism in St Etienne to Man City's stunning comeback against Spurs, here are half a dozen of the best displays with 10 menNB: As always with Joy of Six, this is not meant to be a definitive list.
We have also gone for great performances with ten men rather than great results, hence the exclusion of, say, Manchester United's win over Arsenal in the 1999 FA Cup semi-final.1) Argentina 2-2 ENGLAND (4-3 pens), World Cup second round, 30 June 1998Ten brave lions and one stupid boy.
Dunkirk Spirit.
Over their dead bodies.
Backs to the wall.
In-ger-lund.
We've heard it all before about this semi-legendary display but, as well as being a complete load of nationalistic horse pucky - this was a much cooler, smarter performance than that, overseen with inspiring certainty by Tony Adams - it's also insultingly woolly.
Let's look at the detail of how England repelled an extremely good Argentinian attack, in which the stately Juan Sebastian Veron and the waspish Ariel Ortega were playing arguably the best football of their careers, and Gabriel Batistuta was doing what Gabriel Batistuta did.When David Beckham infamously kicked Diego Simeone within the first minute of the second half, Glenn Hoddle - a fantastic reader of the game who many thought would make a fantastic manager - instantly ripped up his team.
England moved from 3-5-2 to 4-4-1, with more than half the outfield players in new positions.
The midfield, from left to right, was Scholes-Ince-Anderton-Owen.
The legs of Darren Anderton, who had been playing right wing-back, were needed in midfield and, with Alan Shearer leading the line, the necessary goal threat of Paul Scholes and Michael Owen was kept on the field in the least important defensive positions.
Indeed it is often forgotten that Owen almost scored another wondrous solo goal late in the second half.
This was desperately good management: courageous, instantaneous, and most of all bespoke.Once Gareth Southgate came on for Graeme Le Saux, the back four were all centre-halves who were often spread over no more than the width of the D to thwart Argentina's eye-of-the-needle passing.
Paul Merson, who had only played 13 minutes of competitive football for his country in five years and who had spent the previous season in the second tier with Middlesbrough, then came on for Scholes because of his ball-carrying skills on the counter-attack, while David Batty replaced the shattered Anderton late on.Long before the end of extra-time, England's defence had broken the will of Argentina.
They had 28 attempts in the match but only five on target; there were scares, as there always will be against exceptional opposition, but David Seaman did not have a notable save to make in the 80 minutes that followed Beckham's red card.
Not that England played for penalties; only in the last 15 minutes did they really park the bus.
By then, they should have won it: not so much with Sol Campbell's header, which was rightly disallowed after Shearer's elbow scrunched Carlos Roa's face, but when Jose Chamot handballed in his own area in extra-time.It was rousing stuff, inevitably high on physical commitment - Shearer frequently appeared in his own box in open play, once booting clear from under the bar, while Anderton ran the length of the pitch to stop the hilarious counter-attack that followed Campbell's disallowed goal - but even higher on intelligence.
Yet having achieved all that, there's no point losing the bloody penalty shoot-out, is there? RSIf you want to watch the full post-Beckham match click here and follow the links on the right-hand side.2) Tottenham Hotspur 3-4 MANCHESTER CITY, FA Cup fourth round, 2004If ever there was a match that encapsulated the reasons why some folks will never take Spurs seriously as a long-term threat, this was it.
This entry could just as easily feature in Great Capitulations.
Spurs began with glorious panache, Ledley King completing a snappy move by curling the ball into the top corner with his left foot in only the second minute.
A smart dink by Robbie Keane made it 2-0 in the 19th.
Two minutes before the break Joey Barton performed a studs-up challenge on Michael Brown but escaped with a yellow card - Christian Ziege curled the ensuing free-kick into the net, and for bitching to the referee as the teams trudged off for half-time Barton was shown a second yellow.
"Losing 3-0 and down to 10 men, I was just thinking 'where's the nearest job centre'," admitted City manager Kevin Keegan, whose team had crawled into the match with just one win from their previous 18 games.
No tactical ingenuity from the manager accounts for what followed.
"I just told them 'we're playing for pride now and we're looking for a miracle'."Within three minutes of the restart, that miracle, and Tottenham's collapse, began to take shape.
Michael Tarnat clipped a free-kick into the box and the home team's defenders helped themselves to an ill-advised nap, allowing Sylvain Distin to amble in behind them and head into the net.
Tottenham attempted a riposte but goalkeeper Arni Arason, making his first (and second-last) appearance for City, tipped another fine Ziege free-kick on to the bar and blocked Gus Poyet's follow-up.
Just after the hour mark, more slovenly Spurs defending and a large slice of luck enabled Paul Bosvelt to make it 3-2 via a deflection off Anthony Gardner.
Spurs wobbled anew, while City, sensing the unbelievable, summoned even greater speed, flair and recklessness.
So swashbuckling did they become that it was no surprise when, in the 80th minute, Shaun Wright-Phillips raced on to an astute pass by Robbie Folwer and flicked the ball over the keeper to make it 3-3.
Spurs players crumbled in dismay.
Second before the full-time whistle, their despair deepened as Tarnat delivered another wonderful cross and Jon Macken outjumped two defenders to head a preposterous winner.
PD3) Spain 0-1 NORTHERN IRELAND, World Cup first group stage, 25 June 1982Spain went into this, their last first-round group match, needing at least a point to be sure of avoiding an ignominious exit from the tournament they were hosting, and a win to top the pool.
As the teams entered Valencia's Estadio Luis Casanova commentators wondered aloud whether little Northern Ireland could cope not just with a Spanish team that had overcome an iffy start to the competition by beating Yugoslavia in the previous match, but also with the ferocious partisanship of the 50,000 home fans.
It soon became clear that Billy Bingham's men would have another factor with which to contend: the perplexing behaviour of Paraguayan referee Hector Ortiz, who seemed not to notice that a cornerstone of the home team's tactics was to kick or clout every Irish player who tried to touch the ball.
Marking was not enough for the likes of centre-back Miguel Tendillo, who also seemed intent on maiming the visitors' centre-forward, Billy Hamilton.Like Sammy McIlroy, Hamilton would be booked for no obvious reason, while the only Spaniard to see yellow was Juanito, perhaps because pulling McIlroy's hair was not deemed brutal enough.
Two minutes after the break Hamilton would gain vengeance in sensational fashion, racing past Tendrillo down the right flank and sending in a cross that goalkeeper Luis Arconada palmed into the path of Gerry Armstrong, who banged the ball into the net, something England would fail to do against the same opposition a week later.
Now Spain became desperate, the crowd outraged.
Sensing the referee's peculiar state-of-mind, the hosts regularly hurled themselves to the ground in search of free-kicks and cards.
In addition to skill and endeavour, then, the Irish had to summon extraordinary sangfroid to survive - particularly after the 62nd minute, when Real Madrid full-back Jose Antonio Camacho collapsed in the environs of Mal Donaghy and the referee showed the Irish captain a straight red card.
That Spain were still kept largely at arms-length - reduced to flashing in crosses upon which Pat Jennings clasped his enormous hands - was testament to Northern Ireland's heroic industry and impressive craft.
PD4) NOTTINGHAM FOREST v Luton Town, FA Cup final, 2 May 1959The FA Cup final injury jinx of the 1950s - an era of no substitutes - must have seemed old even at the time.
Arsenal lost the 1952 event after Walley Barnes was crocked challenging Newcastle's Bobby Mitchell; the final in 1953 turned on an injury to Bolton's Eric Bell, allowing Stan Matthews of Blackpool to run riot during the closing stages; in 1955, Manchester City's Jimmy Meadows was forced off after challenging one-man hoodoo Mitchell of Newcastle; in 1957 Manchester United goalkeeper Ray Wood was forced to spend half the match wandering the wing in a daze after pieces of his cheekbone were bulldozed halfway round the North Circular by Aston Villa's Peter McParland; and in 1960 (effectively still the 1950s in spirit, and possibly even the 1940s if you believe what social historians have to say) Dave Whelan of Blackburn was carted off with a broken leg.
In all instances, the injured party's team lost.This sorry trend would be bucked twice.
Manchester City goalkeeper Bert Trautmann famously played out the last 15 minutes of the 1956 final with a broken neck, briefly passing out while doing so .
This brave display is usually remembered as one of football's fairytales, but fairytales seldom have such bitter postscripts: as Trautmann convalesced, five weeks after the final his five-year-old son was killed in a road accident, a tragedy that would eventually put paid to his marriage too.So there's really only one FA Cup final injury story that can truly be shamelessly celebrated: Nottingham Forest's largely forgotten win over Luton Town in 1959.
Forest had gone 2-0 up after 14 minutes and were threatening to run riot, until opening scorer Reg Dwight - Elton John's uncle - broke his leg with an hour still to play.
"It needed the loss of Dwight to make a game of it and give Forest the chance to show that their defence could match their forwards' ability," reported the Observer.
Which they did - despite Forest being effectively reduced to nine men when Bill Whare cramped up early in the second half.
Bobby McKinlay, Jack Burkitt and Joe McDonald were "coolness" personified at the back, while up ahead Stewart Imlach gave the famously large Wembley pitch the Roy Keane blade-of-grass treatment.
Forest held on for a "richly deserved" 2-1 win, still standing after one of the great rear-guard actions.
SM5) CHELSEA 4-1 West Ham, Premier League, 9 April 2006Back in the day, as the previous entry shows, having 10 men was an almost insurmountable disadvantage.
There was absolutely no safety in reduced numbers.
When your team went down to ten, you steeled yourself for the inevitable; when the opposition went down to 10, you waited for nature to take its course.
That was then and this is now; that was just nostalgia.
The imbalance in resources in modern football has negated the imbalance of numbers on the field.
If a have is playing a have not and has a man sent off, the numerical disadvantage is hardly noticed. Rarely has that been better demonstrated by Chelsea's demolition of West Ham in the 2005-06 season.
Chelsea were stuttering by their standards, and the title race was more precarious than the table suggested - especially when, in the first 17 minutes of this match, they lost a goal to James Collins and Maniche to a straight red card.But who needs Maniche when your men have established a niche as the most remorseless winners imaginable? Even allowing for the aforementioned disparity in talent, Chelsea's response was chillingly authoritative.
They obliterated Alan Pardew's West Ham, with Drogba giving Collins the sort of chasing that would have turned him grey were he not irredeemably ginger. Drogba scored one, made two, and earned a standing ovation when he was substituted, having been booed by some of his own fans in the previous home game.To some extent Chelsea benefited from the fact they were already trailing when Maniche walked, because it meant they could not compromise their attacking.
By the time they went 2-1 up, they knew they had West Ham by the stones and just keep squeezing.
It was a performance of thrilling majesty, one that killed the title race at a stroke; it was also the 16th time in under two seasons that they had scored four or more goals, and it seriously challenged the perception that Jose Mourinho's Chelsea were boring.
They weren't boring, they were just brilliant - however many of them there were.
RS6) England 1-2 BRAZIL, World Cup quarter-final, 21 June 2002The widespread perception of Brazil's victory over England in 2002 is flawed.
We are told that, even with 10 men after the slightly harsh expulsion of Ronaldinho in the 57th minute, they simply passed it round a tired, meek England.
The game wasn't really like that: once the sending-off had dissolved into the game, Brazil had only one extended spell of possession.
The fact that they were already ahead meant they stopped concentrating when they had the ball, like a tennis player who is a break up in the final set and then loses his opponent's service games to love while he clears his mind ahead of the important business.
The front two of Rivaldo and Edilson saw little of the ball in the final 25 minutes.They didn't need to.
When you are down to 10 men in a World Cup quarter-final, you expect to live on the seat of your pants.
Instead Brazil were in the box seat: they looked around, laughed their heads off when they realised that was all England had, and waited for the clock to run down.
Other than a deflected shot from England's only real attacking threat, Danny Mills, Brazil's goal was never threatened.
David Beckham was reduced to a couple of risible dives.
Nothing else happened.It's easy to blame England but, while they were complicit in their own downfall, Brazil defended immaculately.
Roque Junior's subsequent failing at Leeds cast a revisionist light on this Brazilian back line, but they conceded only one in four knockout games.
And never before or since in a game of this magnitude, between two theoretical superpowers, has the team with 10 men won so effortlessly and so contemptuously.
The ultimate symbol of Brazil's superiority was that, in the final five minutes, they barely bothered to take the ball to the corner flag.
RS
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