{"id":880556,"date":"2025-12-25T23:14:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T05:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/25\/the-worst-world-cup-teams-ever-ranked\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T23:14:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T05:14:52","slug":"the-worst-world-cup-teams-ever-ranked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/25\/the-worst-world-cup-teams-ever-ranked\/","title":{"rendered":"The Worst World Cup Teams Ever-Ranked"},"content":{"rendered":"

Football <\/p>\n

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The World Cup\u00a0is a month-long celebration of the best of the best, titans of football battling it out on the game\u2019s biggest stage, a festival and feast for the eyes.<\/p>\n

But not every<\/em> team rises to the occasion.<\/p>\n

Ask any fan and they\u2019ll recall at least one spectacular flop: A nation that arrived full of hope and excitement, only to be sent packing almost immediately. And over the decades, there have been more than a few.<\/p>\n

Here, Sports Illustrated<\/em> looks back at some of the worst\u2014and most disappointing\u2014teams ever to appear at the World Cup<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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France were a mess in 2010. \/ Getty\/Franck Fife<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Qatar were truly rubbish in 2022. \/ Getty\/Giuseppe Cacace<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Even the great Hugo Sanchez couldn’t help Mexico in ’78. \/ Getty\/Alessandro Sabattini<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Poor Zizou. \/ Getty\/Greg Wood<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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At least Saudi Arabia have improved since 2002. \/ Getty\/Laurence Griffiths<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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“Lads, we need to stop conceding …” \/ Getty\/Ian Walton<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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The 1994 Greece team is one of the World Cup’s worst ever. \/ Getty\/Ben Radford<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Zaire are the World Cup’s worst-ever team. \/ Getty\/VI Images<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

READ THE LATEST WORLD CUP NEWS, PREVIEWS & ANALYSIS HERE<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a> Barnaby Lane<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The World Cup\u00a0is a month-long celebration of the best of the best, titans of football battling it out on the game\u2019s biggest stage, a festival and feast for the eyes. But not every team rises to the occasion. Ask any fan and they\u2019ll recall at least one spectacular flop: A nation that arrived full of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":880557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790,644,2097],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-880556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"category-world","9":"category-worst"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}