In the World Cup, the strength of each participating team must be strong and weak, uneven. From the perspective of grouping, there are both groups of death with balanced strength, and groups with clear strengths and weaknesses that have no suspense. But it is this kind of group that seems to have no suspense that is most likely to become a hotbed of upsets. There are many classic dark horses in the history of the World Cup, which are not favored in the group, but they finally counterattacked and qualified, which is impressive. Among them, there are some dark horses, in terms of strength, they may be the weakest of the four teams in the group, but they can actually win the group in the end. There are three such examples in the history of the World Cup.
Let's start with a recent example. In the 2014 World Cup, there was a classic group of death, and England, Italy, and Uruguay in the same group were all former World Cup champions and traditional powerhouses. And Costa Rica, another team in this group, was almost ignored before the game, as if the qualification situation of this group was only related to the three World Cup titles, and Costa Rica was only a role to accompany the prince to study.
But everyone knows what happened next, Costa Rica can be said to be one of the biggest dark horses in the history of the World Cup. In terms of strength, they are definitely the weakest of the four teams, and in terms of historical results, they can't compare with the top three. They beat Uruguay and Italy and drew with England to make them unbeaten in the Group of Death. In the end, Costa Rica, which was considered to have nothing to do with qualification, instead became the top of the group.
Let's look at a relatively old example. In the 1986 World Cup, England, Poland and Portugal were in the same group. Needless to say, England's strength is needless to say, while Poland was also a strong team in Europe in those years, and as for Portugal, it also ushered in a small peak in the 80s, and reached the semi-finals of the 1984 European Championship. And the weakest team in this group looks like it is the only team that is not from Europe, African powerhouse Morocco.
In terms of strength and World Cup experience, Morocco cannot compare with the three European powerhouses. However, Morocco have been unusually consistent, drawing with England and Poland and beating Portugal in quick succession. Although the record of 1 win and 2 draws is not too strong, it is already very good for Morocco, and this result also made them the first place in the group.
As for the last example, it's a bit subtle to say. In the 2002 World Cup, Japan and South Korea were both hosts, and Japan's signing was not bad, and none of the teams in the group were super strong teams. At that time, Belgium was still a second-rate team, which could not be compared with now, while Russia was at most on a par with Japan, and Tunisia was not as strong as Japan. But South Korea's signing luck was very poor, first of all, Portugal, led by the golden generation, was definitely a first-class team in Europe at that time. In addition, Poland and the United States are also second-rate in the world. In terms of strength, South Korea is indeed the weakest.
But home advantage played a decisive role. South Korea took advantage of the hosts' fortune to the extreme, especially against Portugal, where they were sent off by two and South Korea beat Portugal 1-0 thanks to Park Ji-sung's goal. In the end, South Korea remained unbeaten with 2 wins and 1 draw and won the first place in the group. And the later story is more familiar to everyone, so don't mention it.
The 2026 World Cup, due to the further expansion of the scale, will reach 48 participating teams, and there will definitely be many strong and weak groups. It's just that I don't know if there is any team that can win the top spot in the group as the weakest team in the group like Costa Rica and Morocco back then.