FIFA World Cup 2014: Rise of the underdogs

Costa Rica

When the 2014 world cup began nothing could have prepared us for the amount of upsets that we have witnessed in just the first few days of the tournament. The script has been totally changed as the minnows are giving the giants a run for their money in this edition of the prestigious tournament. Teams like Costa Rica, Chile, Colombia, Ghana, Iran, Mexico, Australia and Belgium who are considered to be small teams are creating waves in the tournament while the so called big teams are struggling to find their forms. As the Giants fall, from their ashes these warriors have risen, unscathed.

By far the most prominent rise of the tournament has been the rise of the Costa Ricans. When the tournament began they were drawn into the proverbial group of death with the likes of England, Uruguay and Italy. No one would give them a chance to even qualify from this group but such is the beauty of football that at the end of just ten days, Costa Rica is sitting pretty on top of the group as the group leaders having beaten Uruguay 3-1 and Italy 1-0 which in the process has knocked out a so called big team in England. Italy and Uruguay both have 3 points each from 2 games and their final clash in the last game of their group would decide their future in the cup.

The Costa Ricans would however play England with nothing to lose. It is more than a given that they will complete the group stages as the leader of their group granted something out of the ordinary doesn’t happen in the Uruguay Italy clash. The reason that Costa Ricans have gone so far is because of their emphasis on team work and team chemistry rather than the over reliance on some star players. They play as a fluid unit and it shows in their matches where every one of their numbers is important.

Another surprising rise is of the team Mexico who has been drawn into group A with Brazil, Croatia and Cameroon. On paper it would be easy to write off Mexico and predict that the more star studded Brazil and Croatia would top this group but as football has shown us through the years that keeping expectation is futile. Mexico sits in the second spot in the group just behind Brazil on goal difference.

With their talisman Giovanni Dos Santos in great form it will take an upset from Croatia to topple them from their league position. In the last set of games Brazil will play Cameroon who will probably be beaten soundly while Mexico play Croatia in a match which Croatia need to win in order to qualify while just a draw would suffice for the Mexicans. With such twist and turns in just 10 days it’s hard to say what the 2014 world cup will conjure up next to surprise the spectators.

The qualification process of Group B is a lot simpler than that of group A with Netherlands and Chile occupying the first and second positions respectively with the last game of the group having pit them against each other for the top spot of the group. Australia though having put a valiant effort against Netherlands in their second match came out in the losing end of the 3-2 score line.

Chile with the drubbing of a subpar Spain would like Netherlands notch up 2 wins in 2 matches thus catapulting them to the second position with Netherlands on top because of goal difference. The former world champion Spain, who were thought to be able to easily overcome the group stages put in one of their most shambolic performances in recent memory when they lost both of their opening 2 matches by considerable margin knocking them straight out of the world cup.

The third team to make a surprise impact in this edition of the world cup is Colombia. Before the start of the tournament they were being written off because of the injury to their star striker Falcao who would not be able to play in his first world cup. With teams like Japan and Ivory Coast in their group who have considerably more star players than Colombia namely Didier Drogba, Yaya Toure, Keisuke Honda and Shinji Kagawa, few would have foreseen the upset that was about to befall on the world stage.

With back to back victories over Greece and Ivory Coast, Colombia sits on top of the table with 6 points with Japan to play in their last group game. Whatever the results may be in the last set of matches Colombia are a surefire entrant to the Round of 16. With young star Rodriguez coming into his own, scoring in every match, Colombia is truly a force that many people had overlooked at the start of the tournament.

With the group stage slowly coming to a close many so called smaller teams have shown that they can go toe to toe with the big teams and are more than capable of pulling more upsets in the world cup as witnessed more recently in the match between Germany and Ghana which ended 2-2 where Ghana had a great chance of actually winning the whole thing if not for some dubious play by their goal scorer Ayew.

Another match which could have ended as a stalemate was between Argentina and Iran which the South Americans won by a Lionel Messi strike in the 90th minute making the score 1-0. Thus, with the fall of Spain and England and the impending elimination of Italy or Uruguay this World Cup has had its share of upsets and it would be rather foolish to bet against the so called small teams now as they have shown us their true capabilities in the world stage.