Football is a game of numbers, skills, and goals. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that so many people around the world carefully follow pretty much every game in a certain league. Sometimes, it can be predictable, depending on the playing team’s past and current performance. These statistics are always interesting to witness, it doesn’t matter how invested you are in a particular match.
Naturally, pretty much every competition has a couple of favorites who are always interested in competing for the top awards in the league or cup. But it doesn’t always end this way. In fact, it can happen that the complete opposite happens. On some occasions, it just doesn’t go the way we predict.
If you are a regular football fan or a sports betting enthusiast, you must have seen a couple of matches you reckoned couldn’t go any other way only to realize the opposite happened. The football world is full of such big shocks but if you visit footyaccumulators.com, you will see some predicted outcomes. If you’re ready, allow us to run you through some of football’s biggest shocks.
1. Atlanta 1996 (Nigeria vs. Brazil)
It’s not uncommon for African nations to come to international tournaments and crash out at the group stage. It’s not that they aren’t good footballers; the Europeans and South Americans are just consistently better. But that wasn’t the case at the Atlanta Olympic Games in ’96. It was a scoreline of 3-1 and barely less than 20 minutes to have the Brazilians celebrating into the finals.
But they underestimated the African team who had managed to reach the semi-finals. In what remains a shock ever since the Nigerians executed an impressive comeback from two goals down. They won the Brazilians with a scoreline of 4-3. It was a lousy day for sport betting folks, considering the Brazilians had initially trashed the Nigerians at the competition’s group stage matches.
2. South Korea /Japan 2002 (Senegal vs. France)
This match displays another case of underestimating the underdog. France, a one-time champion, had a frightening experience with Senegal at the 2002 World Cup group stage. This wasn’t France’s group B team; the likes of the legendary Zidane, Thierry Henry, Vieira, Thurman, and the rock-solid goalkeeper Barthez were all on the field. Instead of the usual expectation, what the football world witnessed was a struggling French team.
Senegal’s striker, Diop, didn’t waste any time sending a goal into the French net once he saw an opening. It was the only goal of the match and a humiliating exit for a football giant like France. But, it was an excellent year for Senegal as they reached the final eight of the tournament before bowing out.
3. 2015/16 Premier League (Leicester win)
It’s still a shock today how a team that escaped relegation by the whiskers suddenly came from the bottom to clinch the Premier League title. Sports betting bookmakers never saw it coming, so the odds of Leicester winning the league was 5000 to 1, at both William Hill and Ladbrokes. Leicester’s win led to the highest sports betting payout in the UK with more than £25 million in total winnings for die-hard fans of Leicester city.
4. 2004 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS (Greece gave the world a banger)
To be honest, the football world already got a subtle heads up from Giovanni Trapattoni, who used the Greeks as an example of “anything is possible in football.” The Greeks don’t have an international key player on their team but, they went on with their coach, Otto Rehhagel, to win the 2004 European championship. Call it a miracle, call it luck, one thing is sure; it was one of the biggest shocks in football history.
5. SERIE A 1985(Verona Win)
If you a fan of the Italian league, then you should probably know the big names. The likes of Juventus, who went on to win that year’s champions league, didn’t stand a chance against the not-so-good Verona at the Italian domestic scene. Osvaldo Bagnoli, Verona’s manager who had never won a trophy, managed to pull of the most iconic win of the 80s. They only lost two matches in the league title, and it was certainly enough to earn them a place among Serie A champions.
6. World Cup 1990 (Cameroon vs. Argentina)
The World Cup 1986, hosted in Mexico, was one of the biggest results achieved by the Argentina national team. At the same time, Cameroon was an average squad that had some interesting players who weren’t so much popular outside leagues they were playing at. It should be said that no person in the world has expected that something might happen besides Argentina’s win. But the Cameroonian team had something else in their plans. At the end of the match, the result was 1-0 for Cameroon. Omam-Biyik was a scorer for his national team in the 67th minute, and the Argentinian team didn’t have enough courage and quality to even the score.
7. UEFA Cup 2000 (Galatasaray Shocks Europe)
One of the teams with the biggest tradition in Turkey, Galatasaray, was always a very reputable team on the old continent. During their long history, they’ve managed to achieve some of the most impressive results. One of the biggest ones was the moment when they managed to win UEFA Cup back in 2000. The beginning of the competition wasn’t as interesting for the team. They’ve lost their first match 5-0 against Chelsea. However, they have managed to progress through their group and beat some of the most reputable teams on the continent until they’ve reached the final. The final match was against Arsenal and was hosted in Copenhagen. Galatasaray won the cup by defeating Arsenal on penalties, 4-1.
8. Premier League 1995 (Blackburn Rovers at the Top of the UK)
Blackburn Rovers are now in the Championship. But, it should be said that this club has achieved some of the most impressive results in the history of the Premier League. In 1995, the club managed to win their third Premier League title, 80 after the previous one. From today’s point of view, this might sound strange, but this was a team that can be described as one of the strongest in the history of the Premier League. The team was led by a Liverpool legend Kenny Dalglish, and the most important player was Alan Shearer, who was the top scorer of the league, with 34 goals.