The Top 10 Biggest Upsets in World Cup History
Published on June 4th, 2026 10:44 pm ESTWritten By: Dave Manuel
Every World Cup leaves behind one result that people refuse to believe even while watching it happen. The fun part is that for every single one of those matches, somebody had already measured the impossible: the betting market, which printed a price on the shock before a ball was kicked. So instead of ranking the great World Cup upsets by vibes, we ranked them by the numbers the bookmakers actually hung on them, built a 100-point Shock Index to handle the eras where no odds survive, and counted down the ten results the market got most spectacularly wrong. The winner is recent, the runner-up involves two mailmen and a hearse driver, and two of the ten were inflicted on teams that went and won the World Cup anyway.Sports-King Feature
The 10 Biggest Upsets in World Cup History
Ranked by the only witness that never exaggerates: the betting odds. From a 500/1 squad of mailmen to the day the books paid 22/1 against Messi, these are the results the market said could not happen.
Every list of World Cup upsets is really a list of feelings. The neutral fan's gasp, the loser's shame, the winner's folklore. All real, none measurable. But there is one observer at every match who put an exact number on the impossible before kick-off, and that observer is the betting market. So this ranking starts where the feelings end: what were the odds, what did they imply, and how badly was the market wrong?
How We Ranked Them
The spine of this list is the Sports-King Shock Index (SKSI), a 100-point composite built for exactly this argument. Betting odds are the headline ingredient, but they cannot carry the whole thing alone, for a simple honest reason: match-by-match odds archives only really exist from the 1990s onward. Where a printed price survives, we use it and tell you whose price it was. Where it does not, you get a dash, not a guess, and the other five measures do the scoring. Here is the weighting:The SKSI weighting (100 points total)
Odds and implied probability lead at 30 points. Class gap is the talent chasm between the sides. Favourite's aura covers unbeaten runs and champion status. Stakes, legacy and the drama of the day itself round it out. One asterisk used throughout: the USA's famous 500/1 from 1950 was a tournament-outright price, the only kind bookmakers printed back then, and it is flagged as such everywhere it appears.
The Verdict
The full board, ranked by SKSI. Note the two red bars: in both of those matches, the team that got humiliated picked itself up and won the entire World Cup anyway, which tells you something profound about what a group-stage shock does and does not mean.Sports-King Shock Index - the full top 10
Gold is the No.1. Red bars mark the two shocks where the beaten favourite recovered to lift the trophy at the same tournament.
| Rank | Match | Year | Stage | Recorded Odds | SKSI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Saudi Arabia 2-1 Argentina | 2022 | Group C opener | +2249 | 96.4 |
| 2 | USA 1-0 England | 1950 | Group 2 | 500/1* | 93.1 |
| 3 | North Korea 1-0 Italy | 1966 | Final group game | - | 91.8 |
| 4 | Cameroon 1-0 Argentina | 1990 | Tournament opener | - | 89.5 |
| 5 | Senegal 1-0 France | 2002 | Tournament opener | - | 87.2 |
| 6 | Japan 2-1 Germany | 2022 | Group E opener | - | 84.6 |
| 7 | South Korea 2-0 Germany | 2018 | Final group game | - | 83.0 |
| 8 | Algeria 2-1 West Germany | 1982 | Opening fixture | - | 81.4 |
| 9 | Japan 2-1 Spain | 2022 | Final group game | - | 79.8 |
| 10 | Switzerland 1-0 Spain | 2010 | Group H opener | - | 77.6 |
The Countdown
1
Favourite Won the Cup Anyway
Score2-1
Year2022
StageOpener
Odds+2249
Fav's FateWon Cup
SKSI96.4
The moment: Salem Al-Dawsari's curler into the top corner
The only upset in World Cup history with a complete odds paper trail, and the paper trail is obscene. Argentina arrived in Lusail on a 36-game unbeaten run, the second-longest in international history and one game short of Italy's all-time record, as the No.2 favourite for the whole tournament behind Brazil. DraftKings priced them at -904 to win the match. Saudi Arabia were +2249 there, +1800 at BetMGM, which the book itself called the biggest odds for any World Cup game winner. Implied probability of what you were about to watch: roughly four percent.
Messi put the favourites ahead from the spot inside ten minutes and Argentina had three more goals chalked off for offside. Then five second-half minutes rewired the tournament: Saleh Al-Shehri's equaliser on 48, Salem Al-Dawsari's ridiculous winner on 53. Saudi Arabia had three shots all afternoon and scored with two of them, while Mohammed Al-Owais repelled everything in green and white sleeves. The kicker that secures top spot: Argentina went and won the whole World Cup anyway, which means the single most accurate price-defying result ever recorded was inflicted on the eventual champions at full strength.
Messi put the favourites ahead from the spot inside ten minutes and Argentina had three more goals chalked off for offside. Then five second-half minutes rewired the tournament: Saleh Al-Shehri's equaliser on 48, Salem Al-Dawsari's ridiculous winner on 53. Saudi Arabia had three shots all afternoon and scored with two of them, while Mohammed Al-Owais repelled everything in green and white sleeves. The kicker that secures top spot: Argentina went and won the whole World Cup anyway, which means the single most accurate price-defying result ever recorded was inflicted on the eventual champions at full strength.
Profile of a shock: the top three compared across all six SKSI measures
Saudi Arabia 2022 maxes the odds axis because its number is the only one actually printed on a betting slip. USA 1950 and North Korea 1966 own the class-gap axis, where amateurs and unknowns beat the aristocracy of the sport.
2
Favourite Out in the Group Stage
Score1-0
Year1950
StageGroup 2
Odds500/1*
Fav's FateGroup exit
SKSI93.1
The moment: Joe Gaetjens' diving header in Belo Horizonte
The asterisk explained: bookmakers in 1950 priced tournaments, not matches, and the prices they printed have become scripture. England, the self-styled Kings of Football with a post-war record of 23 wins from 30, went off at 3/1 to win the World Cup at their first attempt. The USA, a side assembled days earlier from a dishwasher, two mailmen, a teacher, a mill worker and a hearse-driving goalkeeper named Frank Borghi, were 500/1. They had lost their previous seven internationals. One newspaper of the day called them a band of no-hopers drawn from many lands.
England rested Stanley Matthews, widely considered the best player on earth, because the game did not require him. Haiti-born Joe Gaetjens then headed the only goal with half-time approaching, Borghi tipped away everything England produced after it, and the wire copy was so unbelievable that the New York Times initially suspected a hoax, while a British paper reportedly corrected the score to 10-1 England on the assumption of a typo. Both teams went out in the groups, England losing to Spain three days later, and the USA did not reach another World Cup until 1990. The Miracle on Grass is the standard every shock since has been measured against.
England rested Stanley Matthews, widely considered the best player on earth, because the game did not require him. Haiti-born Joe Gaetjens then headed the only goal with half-time approaching, Borghi tipped away everything England produced after it, and the wire copy was so unbelievable that the New York Times initially suspected a hoax, while a British paper reportedly corrected the score to 10-1 England on the assumption of a typo. Both teams went out in the groups, England losing to Spain three days later, and the USA did not reach another World Cup until 1990. The Miracle on Grass is the standard every shock since has been measured against.
3
Favourite Out in the Group Stage
Score1-0
Year1966
StageGroup 4
Odds-
Fav's FateGroup exit
SKSI91.8
The moment: Pak Doo-ik's strike on 42 minutes at Ayresome Park
No verified match price survives, which is exactly why the SKSI exists, because every other measure here is off the scale. Italy were two-time world champions stuffed with the biggest names in European club football and needed only a draw in the final group game to advance. North Korea were the rank outsiders of the entire 16-team field, the only Asian side in the tournament, adopted as honorary locals by the crowd in Middlesbrough.
Pak Doo-ik hit the only goal three minutes before half-time, the first World Cup win by any Asian nation, and Ayresome Park lost its mind on behalf of a country most of the crowd could not place on a map. Italy flew home to a greeting of rotten tomatoes at the airport. The Koreans were not finished either: they led Portugal 3-0 in the quarter-final before Eusebio personally dismantled them with four goals in a 5-3 defeat. Fifty-plus years on, it remains the result historians reach for when arguing about the most improbable scoreline the tournament has produced.
Pak Doo-ik hit the only goal three minutes before half-time, the first World Cup win by any Asian nation, and Ayresome Park lost its mind on behalf of a country most of the crowd could not place on a map. Italy flew home to a greeting of rotten tomatoes at the airport. The Koreans were not finished either: they led Portugal 3-0 in the quarter-final before Eusebio personally dismantled them with four goals in a 5-3 defeat. Fifty-plus years on, it remains the result historians reach for when arguing about the most improbable scoreline the tournament has produced.
The receipts: what the books had Saudi Arabia at, 22 November 2022
The one entry on this list with a full, verifiable odds record across multiple sportsbooks. This chart is why Saudi Arabia ranks first: no other upset here can prove its own improbability to two decimal places.
4
Favourite Reached the Final Anyway
Score1-0
Year1990
StageOpener
Odds-
Fav's FateFinal
SKSI89.5
The moment: François Omam-Biyik's header squirming through
The reigning world champions, with Diego Maradona at the absolute height of his fame, opening the tournament at the San Siro against a side appearing at only its second World Cup. What followed was 90 minutes of magnificent chaos. Cameroon kicked anything that moved, finished the match with nine men after two red cards, and won anyway, François Omam-Biyik climbing for a header that bounced through goalkeeper Nery Pumpido's hands.
Benjamin Massing's challenge on Claudio Caniggia, which removed Caniggia from his feet and Massing from the remainder of the match, is still the most replayed foul in World Cup history. The Indomitable Lions rode the momentum all the way to a quarter-final, the first African side ever to reach one, where only two Gary Lineker penalties stopped them. Argentina, true to the pattern this list keeps exposing, recovered and made the final. The shock stuck to the tournament, not to the favourite.
Benjamin Massing's challenge on Claudio Caniggia, which removed Caniggia from his feet and Massing from the remainder of the match, is still the most replayed foul in World Cup history. The Indomitable Lions rode the momentum all the way to a quarter-final, the first African side ever to reach one, where only two Gary Lineker penalties stopped them. Argentina, true to the pattern this list keeps exposing, recovered and made the final. The shock stuck to the tournament, not to the favourite.
5
Favourite Out in the Group Stage
Score1-0
Year2002
StageOpener
Odds-
Fav's FateGroup exit
SKSI87.2
The moment: Papa Bouba Diop's scramble and the corner-flag dance
France arrived in Seoul as reigning world AND European champions, with the top scorers of the English, Italian and French leagues in their squad. Senegal were World Cup debutants whose entire starting XI played club football in France, a detail that turned the opening match of the 2002 tournament into something close to a family argument. Papa Bouba Diop swept in a loose ball on the half hour, ripped his shirt off and led a dance around it at the corner flag, and one of the most famous photographs in tournament history was born.
France never recovered. Without the injured Zinedine Zidane for the first two games, the champions went out bottom of the group with one point and zero goals scored, the most complete collapse a holder has ever produced. Senegal, managed by the magnificently maned Bruno Metsu, matched Cameroon's African record by reaching the quarter-finals. When Diop died in 2020 at just 42, the entire football world replayed that goal for a week.
France never recovered. Without the injured Zinedine Zidane for the first two games, the champions went out bottom of the group with one point and zero goals scored, the most complete collapse a holder has ever produced. Senegal, managed by the magnificently maned Bruno Metsu, matched Cameroon's African record by reaching the quarter-finals. When Diop died in 2020 at just 42, the entire football world replayed that goal for a week.
When the shocks happen
Six of the ten arrived in the favourite's very first match of the tournament. Champions and contenders are never more beatable than before they have settled in, a detail worth remembering every June.
6
Favourite Out in the Group Stage
Score2-1
Year2022
StageOpener
Odds-
Fav's FateGroup exit
SKSI84.6
The moment: Takuma Asano's finish from an impossible angle
Four-time champions Germany controlled an hour of this game so completely that the upset felt structurally impossible. Ilkay Gündoğan's penalty had them ahead, the xG charts looked like a cliff face, and then Hajime Moriyasu emptied his bench and changed the geometry of the match. Ritsu Doan equalised on 75 minutes. On 83, Takuma Asano took one touch to kill a long ball, outmuscled Nico Schlotterbeck, and lashed a finish in from an angle that should not geometrically exist.
Same stadium, same scoreline arc and same tournament as the Saudi shock, which is why 2022 owns two spots in this top six. Germany never repaired the damage: a draw with Spain and a win over Costa Rica left them out on goal difference, a second consecutive group-stage exit for the most reliable tournament nation football has ever known.
Same stadium, same scoreline arc and same tournament as the Saudi shock, which is why 2022 owns two spots in this top six. Germany never repaired the damage: a draw with Spain and a win over Costa Rica left them out on goal difference, a second consecutive group-stage exit for the most reliable tournament nation football has ever known.
7
Favourite Out Bottom of the Group
Score2-0
Year2018
StageGroup F
Odds-
Fav's FateGroup exit
SKSI83.0
The moment: Son Heung-min rolling into an empty net in Kazan
The defending champions needed a win against an all-but-eliminated South Korea to be sure of advancing. What followed in Kazan was the most German collapse imaginable: total control, zero goals, and then annihilation in stoppage time. Kim Young-gwon scored deep in stoppage time, confirmed by a VAR review, and Son Heung-min strolled the second into an empty net six minutes into added time with Manuel Neuer stranded in Korea's half.
Germany finished bottom of the group. Not third. Bottom, behind Korea on the day Korea was eliminated too. It was Germany's first exit in the opening round of a World Cup since 1938, a streak that had survived 80 years, world wars and reunification, ended by a team with nothing to play for except the oldest motivation in sport.
Germany finished bottom of the group. Not third. Bottom, behind Korea on the day Korea was eliminated too. It was Germany's first exit in the opening round of a World Cup since 1938, a streak that had survived 80 years, world wars and reunification, ended by a team with nothing to play for except the oldest motivation in sport.
What happened to the beaten favourite
Half the favourites never recovered, going out in the groups. But the two in red, Argentina 2022 and Spain 2010, lost these exact matches and still ended the month lifting the trophy. A group-stage shock wounds the legend, not necessarily the team.
8
Favourite Reached the Final Anyway
Score2-1
Year1982
StageOpener
Odds-
Fav's FateFinal
SKSI81.4
The moment: Lakhdar Belloumi's winner sixty seconds after the equaliser
West Germany walked into Gijón as European champions and one of the favourites for the whole tournament, facing debutants whose chances their own players had publicly laughed off in the build-up. Rabah Madjer struck early in the second half, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge equalised on 67, and Lakhdar Belloumi restored the lead barely a minute later. Algeria did not hang on grimly; they outplayed the European champions for long stretches.
The shock has a poisoned legacy, which the SKSI's legacy column rewards in the grimmest way. Days later, West Germany and Austria played out the infamous Disgrace of Gijón, a 1-0 stroll that happened to qualify both at Algeria's expense. FIFA has made every final round of group fixtures kick off simultaneously ever since. One match changed the laws of the entire competition; few upsets can claim a monument like that.
The shock has a poisoned legacy, which the SKSI's legacy column rewards in the grimmest way. Days later, West Germany and Austria played out the infamous Disgrace of Gijón, a 1-0 stroll that happened to qualify both at Algeria's expense. FIFA has made every final round of group fixtures kick off simultaneously ever since. One match changed the laws of the entire competition; few upsets can claim a monument like that.
9
Favourite Out in the Last 16
Score2-1
Year2022
StageGroup E
Odds-
Fav's FateLast 16
SKSI79.8
The moment: Kaoru Mitoma's byline cutback, in play by millimetres
Doing it once is a miracle; doing it twice in eleven days is a pattern. Spain arrived having scored seven against Costa Rica and took the lead through Alvaro Morata, and then Japan repeated the Germany trick beat for beat: Ritsu Doan thundered in an equaliser three minutes into the second half, and Ao Tanaka bundled the winner from Kaoru Mitoma's cutback, a ball that VAR's goal-line cameras judged to have stayed in play by a sliver measured in millimetres.
Japan won the group ahead of Spain, and the result simultaneously executed Germany, eliminated on goal difference in the other match. La Roja's reward for surviving was a last-16 exit to Morocco on penalties. Two giants felled by one team in one group stage, with the second goal surviving the tightest measurement in World Cup history: the SKSI's drama column has never scored anything higher.
Japan won the group ahead of Spain, and the result simultaneously executed Germany, eliminated on goal difference in the other match. La Roja's reward for surviving was a last-16 exit to Morocco on penalties. Two giants felled by one team in one group stage, with the second goal surviving the tightest measurement in World Cup history: the SKSI's drama column has never scored anything higher.
10
Favourite Won the Cup Anyway
Score1-0
Year2010
StageOpener
Odds-
Fav's FateWon Cup
SKSI77.6
The moment: Gelson Fernandes forcing it home through the scramble
The forgotten member of the family, and the proof that even the most suffocating team ever built had one bad afternoon in it. Spain landed in Durban as European champions and the favourite for the tournament, running the tiki-taka machine at maximum revs. Ottmar Hitzfeld's Switzerland parked something considerably larger than a bus, and on 52 minutes Gelson Fernandes forced home the rebound from a chaotic counter for the only goal.
Spain's response is what makes this entry historic rather than merely embarrassing: they won every remaining match, conceded nothing in the knockouts, and became the only nation ever to lose its opening game and win the World Cup. Switzerland, gloriously, failed to score in their other two matches and went home anyway. The biggest upset of 2010 produced a footnote for the winner and a coronation for the loser.
Spain's response is what makes this entry historic rather than merely embarrassing: they won every remaining match, conceded nothing in the knockouts, and became the only nation ever to lose its opening game and win the World Cup. Switzerland, gloriously, failed to score in their other two matches and went home anyway. The biggest upset of 2010 produced a footnote for the winner and a coronation for the loser.
Sports-King's Note
Let me plant a flag on the numbers, because this is the part every other upsets list fudges. You will see the 1950 match described online as 500/1, presented as if a bookmaker offered that price on the USA winning that game. Not true. The 500/1 was the USA's price to win the tournament, set against England's 3/1, because match-by-match prices simply were not printed and archived in 1950. You will also see North Korea 1966 quoted at four-figure odds in places, and after going looking for a primary source, we could not verify one, so we did not print one.That is the whole reason the SKSI exists. The betting market is the best witness we have, but for half of football history it left no written statement, and a ranking that pretends otherwise is making numbers up. Where the receipts exist, they rule. Where they do not, the class gap, the aura, the stakes and the aftermath do the talking. If you have a 1966 ante-post coupon in your attic, the comments section awaits and we will happily stand corrected.
Just Missed the Cut
The hardest cuts in this exercise, every one a famous result in its own right:Costa Rica 3-1 Uruguay (2014)Drawn into a group with three former champions and priced to finish bottom of it, Costa Rica beat Uruguay, beat Italy, topped the group and reached a quarter-final without losing a match in 90 minutes. A tournament-long shock rather than a single thunderbolt, which is the only reason it sits here.
East Germany 1-0 West Germany (1974)Jürgen Sparwasser silenced Hamburg in the only meeting the two Germanys ever played, the Cold War distilled into one fixture. The hosts regrouped and won the whole tournament, shrinking the upset's footprint while growing its mythology.
Northern Ireland 1-0 Spain (1982)Down to ten men, in Valencia, against the host nation, Gerry Armstrong's strike won the match and the group. The greatest result in Northern Irish history misses the ten only because Spain were hosts rather than heavyweight favourites.
Morocco 1-0 Portugal (2022)The biggest knockout giant-kill of the modern era made Morocco the first African and Arab semi-finalist ever. By December the market had stopped treating them as outsiders, which is precisely why a quarter-final earthquake scores lower on pure odds shock than a group-stage one.
One Last Word
The market gave Saudi Arabia a four percent chance and the market was the closest thing that day to being right, because upsets are not common, they are just unforgettable. That is the entire business model of the World Cup.
The 2026 edition brings 48 teams, 104 matches and the largest collection of priced underdogs ever assembled on one bracket, which mathematically guarantees more afternoons like the ten above. Somewhere on the board sits a number in the +2000s that is about to become folklore. Nobody knows which one, including the people who set it. That, and only that, is the sure thing.See you in the group stage.
