How would you feel if a team like Ivory Coast or Ukraine won the FIFA World Cup? I think it would be a big step and prove to others that they can win the World Cup, I do think it's unlikely though.
Hell yeah, then the big teams won't look down on anybody they consider inferior. [emoji106] [emoji106] [emoji106]
Primary rooting interests aside, I don't think that there's anyone who is against seeing a dark horse champion from outside South America or Western Europe including fans from those regions. That is provided that the team in question plays quality, clean football. Even negative tactics would probably be excused provided the story was good enough and the side in question showed good sportsmanship.
Except them, I don't mind seeing them do well (Quarterfinals, semis, etc.), but I'm too biased to see them win it all before my beloved Mexico haha
The likeliness I think depends a lot on how you define "underdog". For e.g. would Belgium be considered an underdog now? They have one of the best teams currently and are one of the favorites to win WC 2018, but OTOH are a small nation with no history of winning. Or by "underdog" do you mean a team that isn't considered one of the best teams but rides a wave of momentum (and luck, of course) just at the right time (kind of like Greece in 2004). The former is quite likely but the latter could take quite a while to happen (probably not in our lifetime).
Momentum and placement in groups determines how far underdogs will go. Mexico or Costa Rica could have gone all the way to the Semis if Netherlands hadn't beaten Mexico.
Underdog eh? Sure, I would love to see England win. Seriously, if any team won the World Cup and played what I deem beautiful football I would be all for it. (Outside of hated Rivals of course. I never want to see them win.) If we somehow get some Euro Greece type of Victory though, I certainly would not enjoy it at all.
Outside of the US I think my favorite underdogs would be Nigeria and Korea. Croatia, Bosnia and Poland would 've pretty sweet too. My BIG underdog would be Iraq. That would be awesome.
TBH, I would be more disappointed in Mexico than angry at the USA if the Americans were to win a World Cup before the Mexicans.
For me t would have to be a team from outside of UEFA or Conmebol or perhaps an Eastern European or Eastern Mediterreanean team. Belgium would be close but their proximity to French and Dutch football makes this less of a story than say Greece, The US, Japan or CIV winning it all.
Yes please. Bored of the same teams winning over and over again. I'm hoping for Colombia for 2018. Not sure whether they're considered an underdog or not at this point. They're definitely a very good team at the moment, but they aren't historically a major footballing powerhouse. Ditto Belgium and maybe Chile. Again, not sure whether these teams would count as underdogs or not. I think a true Cinderella story would be if a team from CONCACAF, AFC, CAF, or Eastern Europe were to win the tournament. USA, Mexico, Japan (or China if they ever manage to sort out their football program), Ivory Coast, or Russia winning it all would be quite interesting. I'd like to see something like this in my lifetime.
I agree with that. The sad thing is that although teams from those regions seem to perform well in the group stage, they usually don't in the knockout stages. With Russia being the host in 2018, they might perform better than usual.
They tend to beat the teams that they're supposed to beat and lose to the teams that they're supposed to lose to. The biggest issue is that those two groups of teams haven't really changed for them in the last few decades. What's good for them is that they haven't had the ups and downs of nations like Columbia, the Netherlands or even Italy or France. But their highs haven't been as high as those nations either for all that they've tended to avoid their lows (although they narrowly avoided an uncharacteristic low when they nearly missed the WC). I think that this is why they stress so much competition in CONMEBOL events. They're looking for a way to close that gap with the teams above them.
Out of the last 6 exits in the Round of 16 the only times they were the favourite was in 1994 against Bulgaria and 2002 against the United States. When I look at who they would have faced in the quarterfinals if they had won, they would have faced Germany most of the time. 1994 - Germany 1998 - Croatia 2002 - Germany 2006 - Germany 2010 - Germany 2014 - Costa Rica
The problem with that is that if you, as Mexico, want to move on to that next tier of nations, then those are the teams that you have to beat. BTW, wasn't one of those teams Argentina? I remember Tevez' offside goal that caused the Mexican players to lose their composure and play like crap the rest of the way. Anyway, to go on with the point, the first time a non-UEFA/CONMEBOL team wins it, they are going to have to beat multiple teams that they are not favored to beat. Unfortunately for El Tri, they haven't been able to move that needle in several decades. If CONCACAF as a whole improves or if they finally develop that Messi-type player that they've been looking for, this could change. This could also change if they join CONMEBOL or CONMEBOL and CONCACAF merge but this is unlikely and would change my feelings on calling them underdogs and wanting to root for them to pull off an upset. To be honest, of the underdog nations I probably root for them the least because I'm a USMNT fan, (but a few past gfs have been Mexican making me an El Tri fan by default a few times) but I did pull for them to beat Argentina in that QF.
I would like to add that not only will they need to beat those types of teams, they will need to do so against the bias of the refs. No way on earth would that "Tevez offside goal" not been called correctly had it been scored by Mexico at the other end. Same with the Frings handball against the US. Other than the S. Korea games in 02, I cannot think of any major game changing controversial or incorrect calls going against an ELITE team in a WC KO game against a non-elite team. I can think of several going in their favor.