Reuters Soccer Blog
World Soccer views and news
New Zealand draw with Italy in another World Cup shock
New Zealand could not quite pull off a win over Italy in their second Group F game on Sunday but a 1-1 draw still represented an extraordinary achievement.
New Zealand are at number 78 in the FIFA rankings and began the tournament as 1,000-1 outsiders while Italy are the World champions yet you would never have known it from the game in Nelspruit.
Here, my colleague Mike Collett picks out the 10 greatest upsets in World Cup history. Let us know if you agree in the comments:
1. North Korea 1 Italy 0, Middlesbrough, England, July 19 1966:
North Korea, playing in the World Cup for the first time, were given no hope of beating an Italian team containing greats such as Giacinto Facchetti, Sandro Mazzola and Gianni Rivera. But Pak Doo-ik consigned them to the greatest World Cup shock defeat of all time with a 42nd minute goal and Italy never recovered, were eliminated and pelted by rotten fruit when they arrived back home.
Time to take minnows off the international menu
Now that the dust has settled on the Ronaldo story (at least until he actually signs) I wanted to go back to something that bothered me about last week’s on-field action.
Former England striker Jimmy Greaves summed it up quite well at half-time during England’s 6-0 thrashing of Andorra in a World Cup qualifier.
