Joe Cole: Press ‘needed feeding’ with WAG pictures at England’s 2006 World Cup

Joe Cole has revisited how the tabloid press turned England’s wives and girlfriends into front-page news during the 2006 World Cup in Germany, recalling how photographers were forever hunting for content on the squad’s partners rather than the football itself.

England’s campaign in Germany two decades ago carried huge expectation for the so-called Golden Generation, and the tournament would end in a familiar quarter-final exit on penalties. But as FourFourTwo notes, a fresh phenomenon took hold that summer, with the term “WAG” entering the national vocabulary for the first time.

Baden-Baden becomes a media circus

England were based in the spa town of Baden-Baden throughout the finals, and as the squad and their families settled in, red-top attention increasingly drifted away from matters on the pitch. Instead, the wives and girlfriends of the players became the story, with their every outing tracked by a growing pack of photographers.

Joe Cole, speaking to FourFourTwo, described how the demand for fresh material meant journalists were constantly seeking new images of the group, however mundane. “Back then, the media needed to be fed with pictures of the girls going for a run or something like that, and it was going on the front page,” he said.

The remark captures how far the coverage strayed from football during that tournament, with images of England’s partners shopping, dining or simply out and about becoming regular front-page fare for the tabloids back home.

Players say the squad stayed focused

Despite the intense scrutiny surrounding their partners, both Joe Cole and Ashley Cole, looking back nearly twenty years on, maintain that the England squad themselves were largely unaffected by the media storm swirling around them. According to FourFourTwo, the pair believe the players were able to block out the noise and concentrate on their preparations in Germany.

That England squad included high-profile figures such as David Beckham and Wayne Rooney, the latter recovering from a metatarsal injury sustained before the tournament, and the presence of their partners in Baden-Baden only fuelled interest from the tabloid press throughout the group stage and beyond.

The 2006 World Cup is often cited as the moment the WAG phenomenon truly took hold in British football culture, with the attention that summer shaping how the media and public would view players’ partners at major tournaments for years afterwards.

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