Every World Cup does this to you. A match that barely seemed worth following suddenly changes the atmosphere entirely; an unexpected goal goes in, notifications start pouring in, conversations light up, and before long, everyone is fully locked into the game.
The favourites win most of the time: better players, better coaches, deeper squads. A glance at the World Cup odds before any tournament will tell you who’s supposed to win, but football has a long, stubborn history of ignoring what’s supposed to happen. Some of these matches happened over thirty years ago.
France 0-1 Senegal, 2002
France went in as champions of basically everything. World Cup holders. European champions. A squad you could’ve picked half the Champions League final out of. Senegal had never set foot in a World Cup before that night.
Papa Bouba Diop scored after half an hour. The French defence had about four goes at clearing it and somehow managed to make a mess of everyone. He poked it in from a yard out. Then came the celebration everyone remembers, shirt off, lying on the grass, the rest of the squad dancing around it like it was a campfire.
France didn’t score a single goal in the tournament. Three matches, no goals, out at the group stage. Zidane was injured for the opener and came back too late. Their manager got sacked. Most of the Senegal squad played in the French league, which always added a bit of extra sting.
Cameroon 1-0 Argentina, 1990
Opening match of Italia 90. Argentina, the defending champions, with Maradona. Cameroon were the team everyone had down for three defeats.
Cameroon finished with nine men. Two were sent off, one for a tackle on Caniggia that you’d probably get banned for life for now. And they still won. François Omam-Biyik scored the only goal, which Nery Pumpido in the Argentina goal somehow allowed to slip under his body. The keeper looks like he’s never seen a football before in his life.
They made it to the quarter-finals, that side. Lost to England 3-2 in extra time, and even that was a robbery in a way; Cameroon were 2-1 up with seven minutes left before Lineker won a penalty that, watching it back, looks pretty soft. Roger Milla was the man of the tournament for everyone outside England. 38, brought back from semi-retirement, scored four goals and did that corner-flag dance after each one. He became globally famous at an age when most players are doing TV punditry.
South Korea’s run in 2002
The co-hosts reached the semi-finals. Beat Portugal, then Italy in extra time, then Spain on penalties. The refereeing in those knockout games is a separate conversation you don’t really want to get into.
The other side of it is that Guus Hiddink had that Korean team in absurd physical shape. They pressed for the full 90 minutes plus extra time in every game. Spain were technically far superior and just couldn’t get going because they had no time on the ball. Inflated by dodgy decisions or a brilliant tactical achievement? Probably a bit of both.
Saudi Arabia 2-1 Argentina, 2022
Messi’s last World Cup opening match. Argentina were 36 games unbeaten, and most people had them winning the tournament. 1-0 up at the break. Saudi Arabia — you couldn’t have named one of their players, never mind three, who scored twice in five minutes after the restart.
The Saudi coach, Hervé Renard, did something tactically nobody talks about enough. The defensive line was pushed up almost to the halfway line. That’s not a high line; that’s reckless. Against Messi of all people, who’s made a career out of timing runs off the last defender. Argentina were offside seven times in the first half. One tactical call from Renard had effectively benched their best player, and it’s the sort of call most managers wouldn’t risk in a friendly.
Argentina lifted the trophy a month later, which was used to soften the blow. It shouldn’t. What Saudi Arabia did that afternoon was its own thing.
Morocco in Qatar
Being the first ever African team to reach a World Cup semi-final, despite coming out of a group containing Belgium and Croatia. Spain dispatched on penalties. Portugal was beaten in the quarter-finals. Ronaldo walked off in tears, which was either devastating or quietly hilarious, depending on your view of him.
Walid Regragui had been Morocco’s manager for about three months before the tournament. Three months to build a team that beat Spain and Portugal. The football wasn’t always pretty; they defended deep, blocked shots, and fouled when needed, but tournament football isn’t about being pretty.
What is remembered most is the players celebrating with their mothers on the pitch afterwards. Hakimi kissing his mum on the forehead went viral on the internet for a week. Football doesn’t usually produce moments like that.
The Point
The favourites usually win. Occasionally, they don’t, and those are the days we keep watching for. Rankings, reputations, predictions – none of it matters once the ball goes down. You find out what’s actually true. Every so often, you get something nobody saw coming, and you remember why you fell for the sport in the first place.
