10 Greatest World Cup Underdog Stories
6. North Korea (1966)
The 1966 World Cup has gone down in history as the sole victory of the Three Lions, but there was another big success story at the tournament that's worth hearing about. North Korea were making their first ever appearance at the World Cup (and their last, until 2010).
Nobody expected much of them and it wasn't surprising to see the team lose their opening match 3-0 against the Soviet Union. They drew 1-1 with Chile in the following game and needed a seemingly impossible result against Italy to have any hope of escaping the group. Somehow, they pulled it off, beating Italy 1-0 in one of the biggest World Cup upsets ever.
Suddenly, against all the odds, North Korea found themselves in a quarter final clash with Portugal. Again, they performed very impressively, opening the scoring in the very first minute, doubling their lead in the 22nd and adding a third in the 25th. But then Portugal's legendary striker Eusébio took the game by the scruff of the neck and went on to score four goals in an incredible 5-3 comeback victory for the Portuguese.