text: Anderson continued to impress for Forest during this period, and picked up his second European Cup winners' medal when they retained the trophy with victory over Hamburger SV in Madrid. Forest did reach a third successive League Cup final that year, but lost to Wolverhampton Wanderers.
  England had duly got through to the European Championship finals in Italy and Anderson was named in Greenwood's squad, playing in the final group game against Spain as a replacement for Phil Neal. England won 2–1 but did not progress further. Anderson later made his World Cup qualifying debut in a qualifier for the 1982 competition in a 4–0 win over Norway. Essentially the battle was now between Neal and Anderson for the No. 2 shirt, but after qualification for the World Cup, suddenly neither were appropriate for the role.
  Injury to Kevin Keegan had meant Greenwood needed to call upon an experienced club captain to lead the team out in Spain, so Ipswich Town's skipper Mick Mills, normally a left-back, was put in the right-back slot (with regular incumbent Kenny Sansom remaining on the left) and both Neal and Anderson missed out. Neal played against Kuwait in the final group game to rest Mills when qualification had already been assured, but Mills returned for the second phase, from which England were eliminated. Anderson, meanwhile, never kicked a ball.