Argentina’s host of stars including Lionel Messi could not prevent them losing their opening group stage game on Monday in Qatar, but it’s not the first time they’ve suffered a World Cup upset.
The Argentines previously struggled even when they had Diego Maradona to call upon, as we’ll see below, but in almost a century of World Cup football, there are plenty of sizeable upsets.
Argentina 0-1 Cameron, 1990
Another mention for Argentina. One of the World Cup’s great storylines was at the fondly remembered Italia '90 tournament. England fans will remember the heartbreak exit at the hands of West Germany in the semi-final above all else, but neutrals will know all about the exploits of the Indomitable Lions.
Cameroon: The Greens Lions on DAZN
With Diego Maradona alongside some Argentine greats, they were shell-shocked by Francois Omam-Biyik’s winner.
Argentina still qualified from the group and ended up losing finalists, while Cameroon went out to England in the quarter-finals. It remains to be seen how Lionel Messi and co recover from here.
France 0-1 Senegal, 2002
France were the current world champions as they made their way to the South Korea/Japan hosted event 20 years ago, and while they could not count on the injured Zinedine Zidane for the match, they were the heavy favourites.
However Papa Bouba Diop scored the winner and kickstarted a French collapse as they failed to qualify out of a group of Senegal, Uruguay and Denmark.
Italy 0-1 Costa Rica, 2014
The Costa Ricans were huge underdogs in their group stage, but there was an early warning to take them seriously when they scored an opening-game victory over a credible Uruguay side.
They then moved onto a game against Italy and Keylor Navas proved his talents with an excellent performance, and topped their group. They would go on to reach the quarter-finals before losing on penalties to the Netherlands.
England 0-1 United States, 1950
The United States stumbled to a draw against Wales on Monday night, but they have the chance of repeating a famous upset when they take on England later in the group stages.
While history will make USA vs. Iran a grudge match, there remains a footballing rivalry between England and the US which stretches back to 1950.
England were upset by a winner from Joe Gaetjens, and despite the morale-boosting win, the USA team could not escape the group stages, and nor could England.
Italy 0-2 Korea DPR, 1966
While South Korea have now emerged as a decent international side, and with Heung-min Son they have one of the best players in the world, back in the England-hosted 1966 tournament, few fancied their neighbour North Korea to beat Italy.
The Korean DPR side knocked out Italy in the last match of the group stages, and then lost in a dramatic 5-3 defeat to Portugal in the quarter-finals. The North Koreans would not return to the World Cup until 2010 when they lost each of their three group stage matches.