5 FIFA World Cup qualifying surprises

2) Angola

Flavio (left) after scoring Angola's first ever World Cup finals goal

In 2005, Angola qualified for the 2006 World Cup marking their first ever appearance at a World Cup.

The African country made the qualifying stages look so easy as they lost only one match out of the ten. Zimbabwe away from home was the only team to beat Angola prior to the World Cup in Germany.

Angola finished top of the group beating favourites Nigeria to the top spot in which they finished second with 21 points, the same amount as Angola.

Angola were drawn into the same group as Portugal, Mexico and Iran at the World Cup finals. As expected, they did not go on further into the competition but they sure put up a good fight in their three group matches.

In their opening game, they lost 1-0 to Portugal from a fourth minute goal by striker Pauleta. But five days later Angola sealed a stunning goalless draw against Mexico claiming their first World Cup point in the national team's history and also giving them a little bit of hope of reaching the knockout stages.

In the final round of the group stages, Angola went up against Iran. Two sides with equal quality and a difficult fixture to predict.

Flavio opened the scoring for Angola heading in a delivery on the hour mark but the possibility of advancing to the last 16 was denied by Iran's equaliser from Sohrab Bakhtiarizadeh's headed goal 15 minutes from time.

Four years on from their World Cup campaign in Germany, Angola hosted the Africa Cup of Nations for the first time going on to finish in the quarter-finals.

They have not since qualified to the World Cup.