Gracenote® released a short list of the most unlikely victories in World Cup history, using
the company’s proprietary football ranking system.
The system was originally developed in 2002; the methodology based on the Elo system which
is used for ranking chess players - and it’s been fine-tuned over the intervening 16 years.
Every time two teams compete, one "wins" points from the other depending on the result, the
winning margin, who is at home and the relative strength of the two teams playing.
We also weight the number of points which change hands by the importance of the competition,
so World Cups and continental championships are the most important and friendlies the
least important.
So, for example, if Brazil (ranked number one) wins a friendly, 1-0, on neutral ground
against 28th ranked Costa Rica, Brazil will improve its rating by relatively few points
as that result is more or less expected.
If however Germany beats Brazil 7-1 in Brazil at a World Cup finals, Germany's rating will
improve considerably at the expense of Brazil's as both are strong teams and the final result
as well as the winning margin are something of surprise.
Gracenote’s Football Rankings use ratings measuring team strength to estimate the probability
of a win or draw for each team in competition.
Matches won in normal time by the underdog with the smallest percentage chance of winning
according to these estimates are identified as the biggest shocks.
So, the following is the top-5 most shocking wins based on the data:
5.
Uruguay 2-1 Brazil (14.3%) World Cup 1950
While this match was part of a final group phase, it was effectively the World Cup final
as the winners were guaranteed to lift the Jules Rimet Trophy.
In fact, Brazil only needed to avoid defeat to be proclaimed World Cup winners on home
turf in this final match of the tournament.
With 25 minutes remaining, Brazil looked set to do just that but Uruguay scored twice in
13 minutes to literally silence the audience of nearly 200,000.
In Brazil, the result would haunt the country for more than 60 years.
4.
Ghana 2-0 Czech Republic (13.9%) World Cup 2006
After reaching the 2004 European Championship final and negotiating a relatively tough qualification
group, the Czechs were regarded as a dark horse team at the 2006 World Cup.
Ghana were making their World Cup debut and had already lost to Italy in a tough group.
In their match, the Ghanaians were able to comfortably beat the Czechs, taking the lead
after only 70 seconds to pull off one of the less likely results in World Cup history.
3.
Algeria 2-1 West Germany (13.1%) World Cup 1982
Algeria's first ever World Cup match delivered their finest result with Lakhdar Belloumi
providing the assist for his team's first goal and scoring the game winner against West
Germany, one of the tournament favourites.
However, Algeria failed to progress from the group despite this strong start.
2.
Switzerland 1-0 Spain (10.3%) World Cup 2010
Spain were the favourites to win the 2010 World Cup.
Opponents Switzerland had beaten only South Korea and Togo, at the World Cup since 1954.
Spain had 22 shots to Switzerland's six but a Gelson Fernandes goal in the 52nd minute
clinched the upset for the Swiss.
Spain, of course, managed to recover from the loss and would go on to lift the FIFA
World Cup trophy three weeks later.
1.
USA 1-0 England (9.5% chance) World Cup 1950
England were the favourites to win the 1950 World Cup in Brazil while the USA team was
a semi-professional squad of which little was expected.
Despite England's dominance of the match, particularly in the first half, Joey Gaetjens’
38th minute header won the game for the United States.
It would be another 44 years before the US would win again at the World Cup.