FIFA World Cup 2010: The Top Surprises at the World Cup
When the World Cup draws were picked and Brazil, Ivory Coast and Portugal were paired in the same group, everyone knew immediately that this was the Group of Death. But the closest it came to living up to being the Group Of Death was the way it bored the fans to wishing they were dead instead of watching some of the most boring football they had ever seen.
The nil all draw between Brazil and Portugal was one of the most boring matches ever played and even when Portugal won seven goals to nil against the North Koreans, it still seemed to be a boring game even though it had a huge number of goals scored in it.
Uruguay were never expected to do even half as good as they did in the World Cup. The South Americans were easily considered the underdogs. The teams qualifiers were lined with inconsistent performances and they only managed to reach the finals after a playoff match. They even had, Mexico, France and South Africa in their group. But the Uruguayans played to the most that they could. They managed to finish in the fourth spot, a position that even the teams fans would have though unachievable before the start of the tournament.
The only team that was undefeated out of the thirty two teams participating was, New Zealand. They entered the tournament as being one of the lowest ranked sides but managed to earn draws against the likes of former World Champions, Italy. Everyone assumed that the Kiwi’s would be a push over, but they silenced everyone once the tournament was over.
Even though the Italian fans didn’t expect much from the team in South Africa, the fact that Italy lost to Slovakia was one of the biggest surprises of the tournament. Slovakia had an even worse start to the tournament when compared to Italy, but went on to beat the reigning World Champions by a score line of three goals to two. After the match the Italian players and fans were left in a state of disbelief while the Slovakian fans were left in a similar state actually.
Even though Slovakia beat Italy, it still can’t compete with the surprise of Switzerland beating Spain. The European and now World Champions came into the tournament on the back of a six nil friendly match win against Poland and had lost only one game in the last two years.
Most people believed that this match would be a walkthrough for the Spanish. However a brilliant display of defense and counter attacking by the Swiss saw the Spanish go one nil down and eventually lose to the Swiss in what is by far one of the greatest upsets in the history of the World Cup.
Forget Brazil, the new team that the neutrals support is Germany. The German team has always been a ruthless machine at the World Cup stage, but the 2010 World Cup saw them knock most of the fan favorite teams out and by doing so they have managed to become the favorite team for neutrals to watch. It scored the most goals and easily was the most entertaining team to watch, the fact that the new German team is now a mixture of players from various ethnicities has just added to its likeability factor.
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