What the world looked like last time San Marino won a match with Arsenal going Invincible, £2 pints and Shrek released

3 months ago 27

SAN MARINO ended the mother of all droughts by grabbing their first win in 20 years of international football.

Aged just 19, Nicko Sensoli etched his name into history by netting the unlikely winner for the minnows as they beat Liechtenstein 1-0 in the Uefa Nations League.

a group of soccer players on a field with a sign that says sonar world

San Marino made history by winning their first-ever competitive match and first game overall in 20 years[/caption]

a soccer player with the number 9 on his jersey

Things looked very different to now, with Wayne Rooney England’s shining star at Euro 2004[/caption]

a man wearing a brown leather jacket with chinese writing on it

Usher was the world’s No1 artist[/caption]

the front and back pages of the sun newspaper

Beyonce was a world superstar, while the late Sven Goran Eriksson was England boss[/caption]

shrek and donkey are standing next to each other in the woods

While Shrek 2 was the box office hit of the year[/caption]

a poster showing how the world looked in 2004

It was only San Marino’s SECOND win ever and their first since all the way back on April 28 2004 – when the world looked a WHOLE lot different.

Indeed, Great Britain was almost unrecognisable from today.

From music and politics to video games and football, to the price of a Freddo and movies to TV shows and pop sensations.

Below we take a look at some of the most major changes to have happened over the last two decades.

SHREKLY COME DANCING

a man in a suit stands in front of a disco ball

Strictly Come Dancing made its TV debut[/caption]

a group of people standing around a man in a black robe

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was a box office hit[/caption]

Our TV screens were given their first taste of Strictly Come Dancing with the late Bruce Forsyth back in May 2004, just over a fortnight after San Marino’s legendary win.

Strictly wasn’t the only TV classic to make its debut in 2004, with X Factor, Hells Kitchen, Peppa Pig, Drake & Josh on Nickelodeon and Power Rangers: Dino Thunder all making their small screen bows.

Pingu also returned after a six-year hiatus, while The Simpsons moved from BBC Two to Channel 4 and Robot Wars came to the end of its first run.

Top Gear – with the iconic trio of Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond releasing their last show on Amazon this month – also aired its fourth and fifth series.

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The big-screen listings were arguably just as big.

Instant classics such as Shrek 2, Spiderman 2, Day After Tomorrow, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban all came out, with Shrek taking the cake as the highest-grossing film of the year.

The Academy Awards were dominated by the final instalment of the Lord of Rings franchise as the Return of the King took home 11 awards – the joint most with Titanic and Ben-Hur.

It was also smack bang in the middle of the changeover of James Bond Actors, with Pierce Brosnan taking up the role for the last time in 2002 in Die Another Day before Daniel Craig took over in 2006’s Casino Royale.

It proved to be a watershed year for video games as well, with titles including Halo 2, Half-Life 2 and GTA: San Andreas all becoming cult classics, while FarCry and the Nintendo DS were also released.

It was a watershed year for video games with titles such as Halo 2[/caption]

a white nintendo ds with a pen attached to it

While the Nintendo DS was the best-selling platform of the year[/caption]

POP CULTURE

It was as mad a year away from our screens as it was on it.

Usher was the world No1 artist with his song “Yeah” featuring Lil John and Ludacris, while “Burn” was also No2 in the Billboard Top 100.

Britney Spears and Beyonce were also superstars in their own right, with the former being named FHM’s Sexiest Woman in the World.

Ukraine won the Eurovision Song Contest with Ruslana performing “Wild Dances”.

Mark Zuckerberg launched what would become the social media juggernaut Facebook early that year, while the Nasa Rover landed on Mars.

a woman with blonde hair is wearing a purple top

Britney Spears was voted FHM’s Sexiest Woman in the World[/caption]

two men in suits and ties are walking together

George W. Bush won the US presidential election while Tony Blair was the Prime Minister of the UK[/caption]

a man wearing a black u.s.a. jacket smiles for the camera

Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook[/caption]

In the political scene, Labour’s Tony Blair was the Prime Minister and passed the Hunting Act 2004 that banned the hunting of most wild animals – most notably foxes, deer and hares – with dogs.

A referendum was also held on North East England devolution, which received a resounding No vote of 77.93 per cent.

Meanwhile, across the pond, George W. Bush was voted in as US President for a second term, while the European Union accepted ten new members, with Cyprus, Poland and Hungary among them.

Science and engineering also came on leaps and bounds that year as Ford launched the second generation of its Focus series and the then largest-ever cruiseliner, The Queen Mary 2, was launched.

A fossil of the oldest-ever land animal dated at 428 million years old was discovered near Stonehaven, water on Mars was discovered and a new human species was uncovered in Indonesia.

INVINCIBLES AND UNLIKELY CHAMPIONS

a man holds up a trophy with barclaycard ribbons around it

Arsenal were crowned Invincibles[/caption]

a group of greek soccer players celebrate with a trophy

Greece won Euro 2004[/caption]

The world of sport was something to behold too, and 2004 was a hell of a year for it.

Arsenal were crowned Premier League champions after not losing a single league game all season, while Manchester United won the FA Cup by beating Millwall.

That season saw Cristiano Ronaldo mark his debut in England, while Wayne Rooney signed for United from Everton and Didier Drogba joined Chelsea in the two biggest deals of the summer.

Lionel Messi made his debut for Spanish giants Barcelona and Jonathan Woodgate was signed by Real Madrid as Andriy Shevchenko won the Ballon d’Or.

The late Sven-Goran Eriksson led England in the Euros, where the Three Lions lost out to eventually beaten finalists Portugal in the quarter-finals.

Away from football, Phil Mickelson was the green jacket at the Masters while Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova won the men’s and women’s titles at Wimbledon respectively.

Michael Schumacher won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in what would be his final title-winning season in Formula One.

One sport which does seem more like today is Snooker, with Ronnie O’Sullivan winning his world snooker championship title.

Summer 2004 saw the Olympics hosted in Athens, where Team GB won nine golds with Kelly Holmes taking two golds and Chris Hoy and Bradley Wiggins both landing their first-ever Olympic golds.

American swimmer Michael Phelps set a then-record by taking eight medals in the pool including six golds, only bettered by the eight golds he took in Beijing four years later and only matched by the eight medals won by Alexander Dityatin in 1980 (three golds).