The World Cup is a month-long celebration of the best of the best, titans of football battling it out on the game’s biggest stage, a festival and feast for the eyes.
Not always, though.
Fans of every generation will be able to cast their minds back and remember at least one dud – a country that comes to the party in the greatest of spirits but is soon asked to make its way home.
There have been quite a few of those to grace the World Cup stage over the years. Here, 90min looks at some of the very worst.
The Dutch East Indies – now Indonesia – have one of the worst records in World Cup history. The only team to have played just one World Cup match (great bit of pub-quiz knowledge for you), they boast a sole firm defeat to their name.
Back in 1938, when the tournament went straight into a knockout format, the Dutch East Indies came up against eventual finalists Hungary in the round of 16, where they fell to a 6-0 hammering in their one and only World Cup appearance.
Short and not so sweet.
There are plenty more sides that have suffered 0-point World Cup campaigns but, while their record isn’t technically among the worst of them, Qatar make this list for being the worst-ever host nation in the competition’s history.
Spain (1982) and South Africa (2010) might have shared that deeply unwanted honour previously but, following a despondent group stage in which the Qataris were utterly outplayed in their defeats to Ecuador, Senegal and the Netherlands, Felix Sanchez’s side have to feature here.
Mexico have featured in World Cup finals a whopping 17 times, although have a few contenders for this list. Their side of 1978 boasts one of those woeful records, exiting the competition having lost their three outings… emphatically.
Their tournament commenced with a 3-1 beating at the hands of Tunisia, before being trounced 6-0 by West Germany and seen off comfortably 3-1 by Poland. A year to forget for the Mexicans.
The only team in this list to have actually won a point in their respective World Cup campaign, the French side of 2002 only makes this list for the bitterly disappointing showing they put in, in Japan and South Korea.
Probably the worst performance of any reigning world champions, France began their defence with one of the greatest shocks in World Cup…
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