Your 3 favourite underdog stories (clubs and countries)?

Fortitude

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As the title goes:

1. Greece. Euro 2004: People moaning about how they played seem to completely miss the point. It’ll be a miracle if they win anything ever again.

2. Leicester City. PL 2015/16: We all know the story.

2. Denmark. Euro 1992: weren’t even supposed to be there and went on to win the whole thing.

I’d add Cameroon 1990 WC as a bonus, but them’s the 3. Yours (and why)?
 
Weird things can happen in cups, but a team like Leicester City winning the PL is something I thought was impossible at the time. And with us not being in the title race it was possible for me to enjoy watching this unfold. So yeah, this is my favorite.

I did enjoy Bodø/Glimt's recent run. CL round of 16 is not that crazy maybe, but the context matters. They beat City, Inter and Sporting at home, Atletico and Inter away, and also drew against Dortmund away. It will take a while before we see something like this again. We're talking about a town of 50k people with a 8-9 hour drive to closest actual city. The wage bill for the whole squad is only 170k per week or something.
 
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Fortitude said:
As the title goes:

1. Greece. Euro 2004: People moaning about how they played seem to completely miss the point. It’ll be a miracle if they win anything ever again.

2. Leicester City. PL 2015/16: We all know the story.

2. Denmark. Euro 1992: weren’t even supposed to be there and went on to win the whole thing.

I’d add Cameroon 1990 WC as a bonus, but them’s the 3. Yours (and why)?
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Good thread Fortitude. Chesterfield FA Cup Semi-Finalists in 1997. They were in the equivalent of League 1 when sides actually cared about the FA Cup.
 
South Korea 02 was quite the run. They beat Portugal in the groups, Italy and Spain in the knockouts and then lost to Germany in the Semi-Final.

Wigan FA Cup win.
 
Nah, Greece were awful to watch. It was like Arsenal on steroid or England pick and go their way to the 2003 Rugby World Cup.


All of them should give back whatever silverware they gazumped.


Edit: My pick would be Zambia winning the 2012 CAN.
 
Leicester winning the league has to be one of the top ones seen as it's over the course of a year so relied less on luck than in a tournament setting. It also lead to the Arsenal bottle job memes intensifying so there's that.

Wigan beating Manchester city in the FA Cup in 2013 was another one. I know Greece winning Euros is probably bigger but the difference in class between Wigan and City was far larger than the difference between Greece and Portugal.

Personally for me, Luton getting a bullshit sentence and points deductions to send us to non-league and we climbed all the way up to the Premier League was a huge underdog triumph.
 
Frankfurt winning the Europa League and eliminating Barca on the way was pretty cool.
 
SilentWitness said:
South Korea 02 was quite the run. They beat Portugal in the groups, Italy and Spain in the knockouts and then lost to Germany in the Semi-Final.

Wigan FA Cup win.
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That was probably the most blatant case of referee bribery ever. That’s why I won’t accept that as an answer.
 
Acrobat7 said:
That was probably the most blatant case of referee bribery ever. That’s why I won’t accept that as an answer.
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Tbf, I don't remember the games that much, I was only 9. Most of what I remember of that WC is the Brazilian games and being in awe of them.
 
Iraq winning the Asia Cup in 2007 was good to see. Zambia as well in the AFCON in 2012.

Atletico winning the title at the Nou Camp in 2013? I can't remember the year.
 
JPRouve said:
Nah, Greece were awful to watch. It was like Arsenal on steroid or England pick and go their way to the 2003 Rugby World Cup.


All of them should give back whatever silverware they gazumped.


Edit: My pick would be Zambia winning the 2012 CAN.
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Crowbarring that in there... you're so French!
 
I always had a soft spot for Argentinos Jrs, specially in the late 70's and 80's. They are trully a very small hood club and their capability of having a trademark in terms of style for so many years that also created the enviroment of producing so many outstanding players, it's quite an achievement.

If they had won the Intercontinental Cup against Juve it would have been an out of this world trifecta (BTW one of the most enjoyable matches ever). Still the League title 84' and later Libertadores 85' was quite a feat. At the end of the day the more notorious thing it's their factory line since the 70s that sadly seems to be fading away (Maradona, Borghi, Batista, Redondo, Riquelme, Cambiasso, Sorin, Mac Allister it's incredible for such an small club), way more admirable than typical huge clkuubs and their historical academies like River, Ajax, Barca of late years and such.
 
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JPRouve said:
Nah, Greece were awful to watch. It was like Arsenal on steroid or England pick and go their way to the 2003 Rugby World Cup.


All of them should give back whatever silverware they gazumped.


Edit: My pick would be Zambia winning the 2012 CAN.
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That's an extreme, they played quite good to their strengths and some of their players had a great tournament in term of perfomances, also like Fort said, that was some achievement
 
Scandi Red said:
Weird things can happen in cups, but a team like Leicester City winning the PL is something I thought was impossible at the time. And with us not being in the title race it was possible for me to enjoy watching this unfold. So yeah, this is my favorite.

I did enjoy Bodø/Glimt's recent run. CL round of 16 is not that crazy maybe, but the context matters. They beat City, Inter and Sporting at home, Atletico and Inter away, and also drew against Dortmund away. It will take a while before we see something like this again. We're talking about a town of 50k people with a 8-9 hour drive to closest actual city. The wage bill for the whole squad is only 170k per week or something.
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Indeed, the larger format provided the possibility of their run, yet at the same time made it harder to make it further in the Competition itself. Also they did win in a convincing and mature way the majority of those games.
 
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Not sure if it meets what you’re looking for as underdog but Forest is always the fairytale story I think of (more than Leicester to me).

Got promoted from old Div 2 in 77 and weren’t even champions (third with one of the lowest promoted scores on record) then comfortably won Div 1 in 78, 7 points ahead of Liverpool.

(you could add the EC next season and season after but not sure they were huge underdogs at tha point… though I still think the achievement was fantastic).
 
Fobal said:
That's an extreme, they played quite good to their strengths and some of their players had a great tournament in term of perfomances, also like Fort said, that was some achievement
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I was at their SF vs France and the final vs Portugal. Awful, awful matches to watch. Then again, France and Portugal failed to create anything in either game so they deserve responsibility too.
 
Leicester winning the league has to be number 1, I would also put Wigan beating city in the FA cup final
 
Would Southampton be up there if the pull off the FA Cup? 1st, 2nd possibly 5th/6th beaten en route should they do it.
 
Leicester #1 also because of the fact that they just played classic counter attacking football, 442 and go. Nothing crazy but just had everyone work so well together.

Greece winning the euros is an incredible achievement but it's significantly dimmed in the eyes of neutrals because of how they played... Takes some doing for neutrals to root against the underdog purely because of on pitch performances/behavior.
 
Kaiserslautern winning the Bundesliga 1998 as a newly promoted team needs to be mentioned here as well, at least on par with Leicester how they did that.
 
Leicester really is unmatched in recent times.

Montpellier winning the league, Leverkusen also. Hearts might win the Scottish PL this year.
 
All Madrid and Barcelonas titles given all the conspiracies and referees against them according to their fans hehehe
 
That Ajax run to the semis a few years ago was awesome. Mostly because they didn’t even play underdog-football, but confidently played their game.
 
Gazza said:
I was at their SF vs France and the final vs Portugal. Awful, awful matches to watch. Then again, France and Portugal failed to create anything in either game so they deserve responsibility too.
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The thing it's that they defend extremely well, that's a merit in itself, it's not that France and Portugal just suddenly forget how to create sthg..
 
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Gazza said:
I was at their SF vs France and the final vs Portugal. Awful, awful matches to watch. Then again, France and Portugal failed to create anything in either game so they deserve responsibility too.
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All their games were awful. From a Football standpoint Greece 2004 was guilty of international crimes. Now for people that only care about a wikipedia fairytale then it's a good candidate.
 
JPRouve said:
All their games were awful. From a Football standpoint Greece 2004 was guilty of international crimes. Now for people that only care about a wikipedia fairytale then it's a good candidate.
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I think it’s ok with Greece. I don’t mind it, when the underdog plays like this. It’s only when the favourites do it, that I get angry. So to me, they deserve to be included.
 
HTG said:
I think it’s ok with Greece. I don’t mind it, when the underdog plays like this. It’s only when the favourites do it, that I get angry. So to me, they deserve to be included.
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It's never okay. As an example I still hold a grudge on Iran 2018.
 
JPRouve said:
It's never okay. As an example I still hold a grudge on Iran 2018.
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Yet HGT is right, there is way more to blame with teams that choose to not attack having the tools to do it, to go extremely pragmatic, than going against a Nation that gave it all, played great defense and obtained a great result.
 
Leicester.
Verona in 1985, including Elkjær’s shoeless goal.
Denmark perhaps? The story is amazing including their greatest and most talented player ever snubbing them before the tournament. Their play was boring not just boring, it was so bad that it triggered the law change… not great for the entertainment but exceptional bit for the story component.

Never really warmed up to that Greece team. That’s out of those who have actually won it.

Clough’s Forest is probably the greatest underdog story ever? Even though they’ve stopped being underdogs at some point of it.
 
Fobal said:
Yet HGT is right, there is way more to blame with teams that choose to not attack having the tools to do it, to go extremely pragmatic, than going against a Nation that gave it all, played great defense and obtained a great result.
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That's your opinion.
 
Malkovich said:
2004 year had 3 major underdogs winning - Porto, Greece and Once Caldas
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I was so pissed off and karma is a bitch...perhaps we played our best game against Caldas, but we paid the price of being so careless and at times lucky for lack of better word during the competition. Still that should have been another totle, more given how struggled in recent (and not that recent) years
 
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