The World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world, and every four years, we see a team take their opportunity on the global stage with both hands and shock the tournament. In 2010, Ghana’s incredible run was only stopped by some dastardly play by Luis Suarez for Uruguay. In 2014, Costa Rica sprawled to the quarter-finals and took the Netherlands to penalties.
Now, in 2018, we have a new batch of underdogs ready to upset the order of world football. These are the three nations ready to escape their groups and defy the odds.
1Sweden, Group F
Sweden will not have Zlatan Ibrahimovic to rely upon in the World Cup, but that may be a good thing. Rather than building around getting the ball to the big striker, Sweden have become a more well-rounded team that can find goals from many areas.
Their star man these days is Emil Forsberg, who lit up the Bundesliga for RB Leipzig when the East Germany team surged to second. But their backline is also very stingy, and only conceded nine goals through Sweden’s 12 games of World Cup qualification.
Second place in the group could go to any of the teams not named Germany. They all have aspects of their game which could see them come out on top of the others. Mexico are favoured to do so by the bookies, with Sweden at a rather tasty evens to move on to the next round.
Each World Cup delivers a new underdog that the world can cheer on as they set out to upset the football gods. This year, Egypt, Switzerland, and Sweden could very well battle to be that team.
