It's about capturing the public's imagination. It's very hard to do that without international success. The only player to really have done that is George Best, you can argue pre- Cruyff the Dutch had achieved nothing and he put them on the map.
Even though they were "just" European championships, the way France and the Netherlands won Euro 84 & 88 has earned they a bigger place in peoples hearts than say Italy winning the 82 World Cup (which is more remembered for the Schumacher / Battiston incident the great Brazil team of Zico, Socrates, Falcao..) or Germany on winning in 90. Likewise even though they didn't win 1954 will always be remembered for the Magnificent Magyar Hungary team.
That's the bar, write one line to summarise a tournament / era, does the player/team feature? If so that goes a big way to hobby love: goals + honours + style + public profile
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