Football Extra opinion: Our favourite World Cups

Football Extra writers Jon Barbuti, Giles Goford and George Mills recount their favourite World Cup editions. Mail us at football.extra@bbc.com to tell us yours.

You can also rank all the editions from 1982 onwards at the bottom of this page.

If we were finding the best World Cup based on stats, I'd have to come up with a different answer. I'd be forced to consider goals scored, the number of thrillers, calculate the shocks and look for tournaments where the star players truly shone.

Italia 90 would fare poorly (at best) for almost all these and yet it is, and I suspect always will be, my favourite World Cup. For me, it is the best edition, the epitome of what the World Cup is.

Yes, it had the fewest goals per game ever seen. From the quarter-finals on, most games either finished 1-0 or went to penalties. Beaten finalists Argentina were so poor that across their seven games they only scored five times. The group stages weren't all that exciting either, England's group was so tedious it looked set to be settled by lots at one stage with every game a dull draw until England broke the trend with a dull win against Egypt.

So how can it be my favourite? Is it just to be contrary?

No, it's because when you are experiencing a tournament you don't know that the next few games might have few goals. A 0-0 is only boring in hindsight.

Italia 90 still had so much happening. Cameroon shocked Argentina in the tournament opener. A couple of days later, West Germany were magnificent in thrashing Yugoslavia, Lothar Matthäus the epitome of what a footballer should be to my young eyes.

Hosts Italy got off to the sort of slow start hosts tend to, only easing the tension with a late winner against Austria. The scorer, Toto Schillaci, a complete unknown outside Italy until coming off the bench to get that winner three minutes later. He'd finish as top scorer, become a household name, and promptly drift back towards obscurity.

England had a great run, only losing on penalties to Germany in the semis, the hosts too making the last four. It was the tournament of Nessum Dorma, Gazza's tears and, yes, ultimate heartbreak but that's part of the World Cup experience too.

Age of the viewer matters, and perhaps time zone too. I was 12, we had been to Italy the previous summer for a family holiday, even meeting a few distant relatives. Matches were on TV straight after school into the evening.

It was football and a focus on all things Italian, an excuse to eat pizza and eat ice cream. It was perfection, well, a penalty miss or two aside.

Has there ever been a more glorious collection of group stage goals than those scored by Brazil at Spain '82? At least five of them remain imprinted on my brain 44 years later. At the time I watched open-mouthed as Eder's sumptuous flick up and volley saw off the USSR, then gobsmacked as Zico's free-kick left Scotland's Alan Rough rooted to the spot.

Then Zico again, the magic man scissored his body into perfection to score against New Zealand. They were beautiful to watch, even in grainy technicolour, even as the sweat turned their shirts a deeper shade of yellow. With Falcao and Socrates patrolling the midfield, I would struggle to remember a Brazilian defender, but even right-back Leandro would attempt an overhead kick at goal from the edge of the area!

But it wasn't all about Brazil for me in '82. I watched every minute of every game I could, racing home from school to see Bryan Robson put England ahead after 27 seconds against France, but then choosing France as my team to support after both England and Brazil crashed out in the second group stage. Platini was sublime, running the show from midfield, then Dominique Rochteau and Alain Giresse with the finesse to see off Northern Ireland. They were full of flair, one-touch passing moves and had the best hair of any squad.

As if that wasn't enough, the semi-finals brought what has been for me, the most dramatic football match I have seen. France, 3-1 up in extra-time against West Germany, and I was begging for the final whistle, especially after being horrified by Harald Schumacher's assault on Patrick Battiston. I needed the good guys to win this one. But football can break your heart, and I'm not even French.

Firstly Rummenigge, and then Fischer, with admittedly a superb overhead kick, levelled it at 3-3. Little did I know at the time, but this was the first World Cup match to be decided by a penalty shoot-out, and I was heavily invested. I knew what was coming, the French were deflated, the Germans seized their chance, and I was a wounded nine-year old.

I should have stopped watching football then, but I roused myself for the final. I needed to see the Germans beaten, and thankfully, due to an Italian team finally showing some attacking nous, they were.

Marco Tardelli provided the perfect celebration after his second half goal, one copied by hundreds of thousands of wannabe footballers the next day in playgrounds all over the world. It was a mesmerizing month of football, and I was gutted when it was over.

No World Cup since has given me the feels like Espana '82.

The first World Cup I can remember was the 1998 tournament in France.

I would've only been seven years old, so I really don't recall much other than the infamous last-16 tie between England and Argentina. Even then, I sometimes wonder whether my memories of having seen that Michael Owen goal or David Beckham's red card are false, and in actual fact I've just seen the clips replayed infinitely over the years.

But my favourite? It's tricky to make that call based purely on the football. Because these tournaments last for a month or six weeks, whatever it is, it's hard to separate your experience of them from whatever else was going on in your life at the same time.

That is why I think I'd have to say I enjoyed the 2018 World Cup in Russia most.

That summer was the most fun of my life. I was living with four of my best friends in a tiny flat in a trendy part of London, had started dating my future wife (mentioned to see whether she actually reads Football Extra like she says she does) and was taking my first steps into the world of sports journalism. All these exciting things were going on which just so happened to coincide with England looking like a serious and credible challenger for a major tournament for just about the first time in my life.

The whole atmosphere around London was euphoric, helped by a rare summer of endless sunshine. Each England victory induced a sort-of blissful collective delirium that spilled out from the bars and pubs, kerbside carnivals all grooving to the tune of "Southgate, you're the one…".

We didn't go on to win it obviously but it felt like a significant moment for England as a resurgent footballing force. We finally won a penalty shootout during that tournament, while Harry Kane won the Golden Boot. We started to shake off the weird inferiority complex that I think masked itself as entitlement during the so-called "Golden Generation" prior, and began a new era.

The tournaments that followed were just as successful for England, runners-up in successive European Championships with a narrow quarter-final exit to eventual finalists France at the 2022 World Cup.

All that good work started with what happened during Russia 2018 – will this chapter of the England men's team end with us lifting the big one?

Oh, I would love it.