The 10 greatest underdog teams in football history
In any sport, the fans love nothing more than a great underdog story. Football is no different and with the game constantly changing in the modern era – with the power of money now becoming greater than ever – the need for an underdog for the fans to root for is greater than ever.
Football history has seen some great underdog stories – teams managing to defeat much bigger and better sides to win trophies, even the biggest ones – and here are ten of the best of all time.
#10 South Korea, 2002 World Cup
It’s a controversial call I guess because there are some fans that believe the 2002 World Cup was fixed in order for hosts South Korea to make it into the semi-finals, but there’s never been definitive proof of any wrong-doing, and for a side like South Korea – with practically no notable players – to make the semi-finals of a World Cup, even at home, is a great underdog story.
It began in the group stages, as the Koreans upset Poland 2-0 and then drew with the USA 1-1. That left them needing a result against Portugal in order to qualify, and this was a Portugal team who’d reached the semi-finals of Euro 2000 and had one of the world’s best players in Luis Figo. But South Korea beat them 1-0 and made it into the last 16.
From there, the Koreans defeated Italy 2-1 in extra-time via Ahn Jung-Hwan’s shock goal – the player was fired by his Italian club Perugia for it – and then managed to beat Spain in a penalty shoot-out to reach the semis, where the underdog story ended at the hands of Germany.
The final two games were controversial due to disallowed goals for the Italians and Spanish, but still, South Korea shouldn’t have made it through the group stage and they did, making them a classic underdog side.