⚽ Top 5 World Cup Betting Upsets

You’d expect such a wide selection of teams to throw up a surprise or two, but in reality, there have only been eight different winners from 22 finals tournaments to date. 

Mismatches are common, meaning that punters tend to put on accumulators during the group stages in particular, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t an upset along the way. 

With that in mind, we’ve picked out the five biggest World Cup shocks according to the betting odds, dating back to 2010. 

5. Argentina 1-2 Saudi Arabia (2022 World Cup) - 30/1 with BetVictor 

If you are a follower of the beautiful game, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to see one of the sport’s greatest ever shock results top this list. 

The group stage of the World Cup is notorious for being full of mismatches and not many punters gave Saudi Arabia much hope against Argentina, who arrived in the Middle East as one of the favourites for the tournament. 

Saudi Arabia weren’t total novices, with Qatar being their sixth appearance at a finals, but they had won just three of their 16 tournament matches prior and arrived here ranked 51st in the world. Meanwhile, Argentina had qualified unbeaten for this and were determined to provide superstar forward Lionel Messi with the one trophy missing from his collection. 

The bookmakers gave Saudi Arabia little hope of causing the upset, with BetVictor pricing them up as 30-1 shots to do the unthinkable. A shock result didn’t look likely in the first half either as it was total one way traffic, with Messi giving his side the lead before Argentina had a scarcely believable three goals chalked off for offside. 

The Green Falcons hung in there and their risky offside trap approach paid dividends in the second half, when they caught the favourites cold with a 10 minute salvo that saw Saleh Al Shehri and Salem Al Dawsari give their side a shock lead. Chaos ensued and the Saudis had to withstand heavy pressure, but they held on for arguably the biggest upset the tournament has ever seen.

That result would be as good as it got for Saudi Arabia, who went on to exit at the group stage after back-to-back defeats to Poland and Mexico. Meanwhile, Argentina recovered to ultimately win the tournament, seeing off France on penalties in a stellar final.

4. Spain 0-1 Switzerland (2010 World Cup) - 16/1 with BetVictor 

Much like our first entry, this match features a side in Spain who lost their opening fixture, but would go on to become world champions. 

The 2010 World Cup was the first to be held in Africa and Spain arrived in the Southern Hemisphere as heavy favourites to win their first title, having sauntered to success in Euro 2008 and amazingly had lost just once in their last 48 fixtures. 

The Spanish side was the envy of world football and heavily featured an FC Barcelona side that had been dominating the club scene, including fearsome midfield duo Xavi and Andrés Iniesta to name just two. Such was their strength in depth that superstar players like Cesc Fabregas, Juan Mata and Fernando Torres had to settle for being used as rotation options. 

The Swiss were certainly no mugs in what was their seventh finals appearance and while they were a solid unit, their line-up lacked the star names that Spain could call on. 

They had qualified for the tournament automatically, losing just once, but some poor performances in their warm up fixtures saw BetVictor price them up as 16-1 outsiders to make a winning start.

Spain were known for dominating possession and they piled the pressure on Switzerland from the offset, though they were guilty of trying to walk the ball into the net. The underdogs waited for their moment and took the lead from their very first attack in the second half, when Gelson Fernandes capitalised on some sloppy defending to poke home. 

A Spanish onslaught followed, but Switzerland held their nerve to cause a monumental shock and bust many World Cup accumulators in the process. 

3. Uruguay 1-3 Costa Rica (2014 World Cup) - 19/2 with 10Bet 

Costa Rica is the only nation to feature in this list twice in a positive setting and their first appearance features an almighty shock at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. 

The Central American nation aren’t exactly heavyweights in the footballing world, having qualified just three times prior to these finals. They had secured their spot automatically in their qualifying group behind the USA, but ranked 28th in the world, they were given little hope in a group consisting of Uruguay (7), Italy (9) and England (10). 

Uruguay had to come through a play-off with Jordan to seal their place at the finals, but they were the highest ranked of the trio and could boast a front-line that included world class talents in Luis Suarez, Edinson Cavani and Diego Forlan.

Having lost their last four World Cup finals matches, Costa Rica were priced up as 19/2 outsiders to win their opening game, with everyone expecting them to ultimately prop up the group on zero points. However, fronted by Arsenal forward Joel Campbell, the underdogs struck three times in the second half to seal a shock come-from-behind success. 

Things would continue to improve from there, with a victory over Italy and a goalless draw with an already eliminated England seeing Costa Rica win their group, before eventually losing out to the Netherlands on penalties in the quarter-finals. 

▶️ Watch the official match highlights on YouTube.

2. Japan 0-1 Costa Rica (2022 World Cup) - 13/2 with bet365 

Costa Rica enjoyed something of a golden era on the back of their sensational performance in Brazil and having qualified for the 2018 tournament in Russia, they arrived for their third straight finals appearance in Qatar four years later. 

With the majority of their key players heading into the twilight of their respective careers by this point, they were once again written off in a group which featured two key contenders for the trophy in Spain and Germany, as well as top Asian side Japan. 

Things started badly for the underdogs, who were dismantled 7-0 at the hands of Spain in their opening game, meaning they were huge 13/2 underdogs to defeat a Japan side that had shocked Germany in their opening contest (see more below). 

Japan knew that victory would all but assure them a place in the knockout round, but they struggled to find any momentum, leading to a fairly dreary encounter. It looked destined to end as a draw, but Keysher Fuller’s deflected shot nine minutes from time dumbfounded goalkeeper Shuichi Gonda and sealed another famous upset. 

1. Germany 1-2 Japan (2022 World Cup) - 13/2 with Betfred 

It’s impressive enough that Japan features in this article more than once, though it’s staggering that they do so as both favourites and underdogs at the same tournament - courtesy of back-to-back games at the Qatar World Cup. 

Japan were ranked 24th in the world, though they were given little chance of qualifying from a group that included European heavyweights Spain (7) and Germany (11) - with the latter having won all but one of their qualifying games. 

As four-time world champions, everyone expected another strong run from the Germans, who were looking to bounce back having crashed out at the group stage as holders four years earlier in Russia. Their squad was perhaps one of the weaker generations that we’d seen for a while, though it still boasted an array of players plying their trade at elite clubs. 

Japan had made it out of the group just once in five attempts at tournaments outside of their home country and the bookmakers priced them up as 13/2 outsiders to cause a surprise - odds that were no doubt pushed out by the fact they had lost a warm up match against lowly ranked Canada in the build up. 

Germany had the better of the contest for large spells and their dominance paid off when Ilkay Gundogan put them ahead from the spot in the first half. Several key chances followed, but the favourites were left to rue missed opportunities when quickfire goals from Ritsu Doan and Takuma Asano turned the game on its head. 

As mentioned above, Japan would then go on to lose their second game as favourites to unfancied Costa Rica, but they had more surprises in their pocket. A shock victory over Spain would see them win their group, before losing out on penalties to Croatia in the next round.