The beauty of football is that the favourites do not always win. That’s why we dutifully attend every home match, make the gruelling journeys to away fixtures in the snow and rain, why we hope against all hope that yes, this is the year.
And while most of the time, the big teams win, sometimes they don’t. The underdogs can have their day, too. These are the miracles that have etched their stories in football folklore.
Danish Holiday Lads’ Euro 1992 Miracle
To win a major international trophy, you need to qualify for the tournament. It seems like an obvious statement, right?
Tell that to the Danes, who won the tournament despite not getting out of their qualifying group. With the summer off, Danish players were already on the beach, and not in playing shape. Until 2 weeks before the tournament, the war in Yugoslavia necessitated finding a replacement.
Richard Moller Nielsen, the unpopular manager of the national team, quickly got his group together to prepare for the upcoming tournament through a shortened training camp. No one expected they would do anything, not even with the best training preparation, they were there to act as fillers, perhaps a surprise qualification to the next round.
It made sense. The team had some great players, sure, but nothing compared to the giants of the era. The defending champions, the Dutch, still had all of their great stars, including van Basten, Rijkaard, Koeman, and Gullit. World Cup winners Germany were keen to maintain their supremacy, with players like Andreas Brehme, Jürgen Klinsmann, and Rudi Völler still at their peak levels.
Things didn’t look good, to begin with, first a 0-0 draw against England, followed by a standard defeat against the hosts Sweden. But then things miraculously started taking shape.
In their match against France, they won 2-1 after some personnel and tactical changes. In the 2-2 draw against the Dutch, they played well, and arguably deserved the win in normal time. Keeping their cool in penalties, they followed to the final.
Surely this would be their Waterloo? The Germans never lose a final, so goes conventional wisdom (except ‘66, of course). The early stages went as expected, with Germany piling on the pressure and dominating possession.
Yet football does not reward stats, only goals. Against the run of play, Jensen scored the 1-0. They would add another, defeating the reigning World Cup champions 2-0.
Cameroon World Cup, 1990
Gazza’s tears. Caniggia’s flowing blonde locks. Pavarotti. Salvatore Schillaci’s sudden rise. And, of course, Roger Milla’s dance at the corner flag. For many fans, Italia 90 has a mythological quality, the quintessential summer World Cup, the characters, the drama, this tournament seemed to have it all.
For Africa, it would become the first time fans would see one of their own make it deep into a tournament. The Indomitable Lions, led by legend Roger Milla, marked the game with their enthusiastic play, miracle victories, and inspired celebrations.
Their first result would have been enough to cement the team’s place in football folklore. Playing against the winners of the 1986 World Cup, still led by the best player in football, Diego Maradona, no one expected anything but a routine victory.
You know what happened next. In a tense match, Cameroon would win 1-0. In their next fixture, they would do enough to advance to the second round, beating Romania 2-1. Despite a defeat against the Soviets (0-4), they topped the group ahead of Argentina.
In their next match, they faced one of the dark horses for the tournament. Rene Higuita, also a legend of Italia 90, would make a catastrophic error, giving Cameroon a goal. Redín would score a consolation goal deep into extra time, but Cameroon’s next destination was clear: England.
Cameroon almost managed to reach the final four, ultimately succumbing to two Lineker’s penalties. Yet, they managed to push England to extra time, against the bookies’ odds and were just 7 minutes away from a semifinal.
Of course, had that happened, we would not have had Gazza’s tears. Or a trauma that continues to haunt England to this day. Soon, it will be 60 years of hurt…
Leicester City Win the Premier League
Our final entry is perhaps the most unlikely in football history. National team tournaments are just a handful of games, whereas to win a league, it’s a whole season.
The Premier League is a 38-game slog against some of the biggest clubs in the world, and the richest. That’s why it’s always one of the top six that emerge victorious.
Compared to the likes of Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal, et al., Leicester City was considered cannon fodder for the 2015-16 Premier League season.
The bookies had the odds at 5,000-1 before the season started. To put this into perspective, they thought this was more likely to happen: the Queen to record a hit record, the Loch Ness monster being discovered, and Simon Cowell being Prime Minister.
As of 2024, none of those things have happened (although, with the UK’s current political climate, maybe we’d benefit from a Simon Cowell premiership!).
Yet Claudio’s upstarts, to many observers closer to a Sunday League team than Premier League champions, managed to do what many thought was impossible. Until the business end of the season, most predicted they’d eventually fall off to midtable, where most thought they belonged.
Almost a decade on, it still captures the imagination. Andrea Bocelli’s beautiful rendition of Nessun Dorma is a repeat favourite for football fans everywhere.
