Everyone loves a good underdog story.
Football is often considered the sport of the underdog, and thankfully it has given us innumerable David vs Goliath tales over the years. From football upsets in domestic cups to the biggest shocks in football history on the world stage, here are the five biggest upsets in football history, along with some near-misses too remarkable to ignore.
5. Manchester City 0-1 Wigan Athletic (2013 FA Cup final)
Odds: Wigan were approximately 8/1 underdogs at kick-off.
Talk about the biggest FA Cup upsets and this one comes up immediately. It has to.
Wigan Athletic beat Manchester City in the 2013 FA Cup Final at Wembley. Not on penalties, not with a fluky deflection in the first minute. They outplayed them, and Ben Watson headed home off a Shaun Maloney cross deep into stoppage time to seal it. Wigan’s first major trophy in 81 years as a Football League club, and Roberto Martinez had them set up perfectly from first whistle to last.
Three days later they were relegated. Won the cup on Saturday, down by Tuesday. Nobody’s done it before or since, and honestly, nobody probably will. When you rank the FA Cup’s biggest upsets, this one sits on its own.
4. Real Madrid 1-2 Sheriff Tiraspol (2021-22 Champions League group stage)
Odds: Sheriff were approximately 14/1 to win the match.
Most people had to Google Sheriff Tiraspol when the Champions League draw came out. They’re from Transnistria, a breakaway region of Moldova that most of the world doesn’t formally recognise as a state. None of that stopped them going to the Bernabeu and beating Real Madrid.
Yakhshiboev headed them in front in the first half. Benzema got one back from the spot. And then Sebastien Thill, a Luxembourg international, won it in the last minute with a curled finish into the top corner. The away end went mad. Of all the football upsets in Champions League history, this one still doesn’t feel entirely real.
It is a reminder that the Champions League has always been capable of producing nights nobody sees coming, something British clubs in the 2024/25 Champions League will be well aware of as they look to make their mark in the competition.
3. Portugal 0-1 Greece (2004 Euro final)
Odds: Greece were approximately 80/1 to win the tournament before it began.
Portugal had Figo, a teenage Ronaldo, Deco and Maniche. They were playing at home, in a final. Greece had a solid defensive shape and Otto Rehhagel. That was about it.
One of the biggest shocks in football history, and what makes it stranger is that Greece had already beaten Portugal at the start of the same tournament. Opening game. Same opposition. So when Angelos Charisteas got his head to an Angelis Basinas corner in the 57th minute, Portugal had been beaten by Greece twice in their own competition. Scolari had won the World Cup with Brazil two years earlier and couldn’t win a European Championship on home soil. No straightforward explanation for it.
2. South Korea (2002 World Cup)
Odds: South Korea were approximately 100/1 to reach the semi-finals.
This isn’t one football upset. It’s several. South Korea knocked out Italy in the round of 16, then Spain in the quarter-finals. Italy and Spain. At home, granted, but still.
Against Italy, Seol Ki-Hyeon equalised two minutes from time before Ahn Jung-Hwan scored the golden goal in extra time. Totti had been sent off, which didn’t help Italy. Against Spain it finished 0-0 after 120 minutes, went to penalties, and Joaquin missed. South Korea were in the semi-finals of a World Cup.
The refereeing needs mentioning because it always comes up. Goals were disallowed for both Italy and Spain, decisions didn’t hold up to scrutiny, and the whole thing remains contentious. That’s a legitimate point. But their semi-final finish is still the greatest achievement in Asian football history, controversy and all.
1. North Korea 1-0 Italy (1966 World Cup group stage)
Odds: North Korea were considered massive outsiders, with Italy ranked among the pre-tournament favourites.
The Italian squad came home from the 1966 World Cup to find supporters at the airport throwing rotten tomatoes at them. That actually happened.
Italy were two-time world champions. North Korea were barely known outside Asia. Pak Doo-ik scored just before half-time and despite Italy having Rivera and Mazzola in the side, they couldn’t get it back. Out in the group stage. For a lot of people, this is the biggest football upset match in history, and it’s hard to argue with that.
Then North Korea went 3-0 up against Portugal in the quarter-finals. Three nil, against Eusebio’s Portugal. They were 45 minutes from the semi-finals before Eusebio scored four goals and Portugal won 5-3. North Korea nearly did it twice in the same tournament.
Honourable Mentions
Five is never enough when it comes to football upsets. These ones didn’t make the list but they should have been close:
Senegal 1-0 France, 2002 World Cup: Senegal beat the reigning world champions in the opening game. Several of their squad played their club football in France. One of the best results in World Cup history.
Saudi Arabia 2-1 Argentina, 2022 World Cup: Argentina arrived in Qatar 36 games unbeaten. Saudi Arabia’s second half was one of the most disorienting 45 minutes the World Cup has ever produced.
Iceland 2-1 England, Euro 2016: A country of 330,000 people knocked England out of a major tournament. The Roy Hodgson press conference afterwards is worth finding if you haven’t seen it.
Leicester City, 2015-16 Premier League: The greatest upset in English football league history, no question. A club that had been in the lower divisions of the Football League not long before this went and won the Premier League at 5000/1. They weren’t even that close to being caught.
The Enduring Magic of the Underdog
The argument over the biggest upset in football history won’t ever be settled, and something new will come along eventually to make it even harder to rank. That’s fine. That’s the point.
What all these football upsets have in common is that none of them were supposed to happen. No squad depth, no history, no obvious route to victory. At some point the game stops caring about the pre-match narrative. Pak Doo-ik wasn’t thinking about Italy’s trophy cabinet. Ben Watson wasn’t thinking about City’s wage bill. The ball went in, and nothing about football was the same afterwards.
