On paper, none of them should have won. On paper, they should have been trounced by multiple goals to zero (much as Portugal did against North Korea on Monday June 21). But in real life, on paper and on the field are two entirely different things.
Take New Zealand: small island nation south of Australia, better-known for rugby and cricket than football. Before this year they had made one other appearance at the World cup: in 1982. (That’s 28 years ago.) They play in the Oceanic Football Confederation, where their opponents include Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga and Vanuatu (famous for hosting one season of reality show Survivor). Australia used to be part of the OFC but left in 2006 to join the Asian Football Confederation.
To book their spot in the 2010 World Cup, New Zealand, the only seeded team in the OFC, won the Oceania qualification group and beat Bahrain, the fifth-placed team in the AFC. (Yes, Bahrain, that island in the Middle East.)
New Zealand has a population of around four million: there are more footballers in Italy than there are people living on New Zealand’s two islands. (Sheep: well, that’s another matter). New Zealand has only 25 professional footballers. Their player base numbers less than 20Â 000. Only their captain, Ryan Nelsen, plays for a recognised club, Blackburn Rovers, in the English Premier League. Two of the players don’t play for any club at all. Andy Barron plays for amateur club Team Wellington. His day job? He works in a bank. That’s right: he had to get time off from work to come to South Africa to play in the World Cup.
So no one was expecting anything from the All Whites, as they are fondly known. Their group included Paraguay, Italy and Slovakia: if you added their Fifa rankings together it still wouldn’t reach New Zealand’s position of 78. But in their very first game New Zealand stunned the world by drawing 1-1 with Slovakia and earning their very first World Cup point.
New Zealand’s next match was against Italy. As in, current World Champions and fifth-ranked Italy. Yes, that Italy. A little unfair, maybe; but that’s the luck of the draw.
Astonishingly, New Zealand’s Shane Smeltz scored a goal off a free-kick in the seventh minute. That’s right: this tiny island nation had scored against one of the giants of world football. The joy and excitement that this caused completely overshadowed the fact that Italy equalised from a penalty in the 29th minute. For the New Zealanders, it felt like they’d won.
The headline on the official website of New Zealand football read “New Zealand 1 — World Champions 1”. The Prime Minister, John Key, went to the dressing room after the match to congratulate the team personally. An international media storm exploded.
New Zealand are now lying on two points, the same as Italy. If they beat Paraguay they will have made it to the knock-out stages. It may seem like a tall order, but now everyone knows that anything can happen, and you can’t write this team off just yet.
Here are some other surprises from the tournament so far:
Bafana Bafana
Even though they had 48-million people believing in them, the fact is that Bafana Bafana are ranked 83rd in the world. Yet they managed to hold top-20 team Mexico to a one-all draw in the opening match of the World Cup, scoring the first goal of the tournament in the process.
South Korea
It’s debateable whether South Korea can truly be classed as underdogs, since they reached the semifinals of the 2002 World Cup, albeit on home soil. But the team, ranked 47th in the world, defeated 13th-ranked Greece 2-0 at the Nelson Mandela Bay stadium in Port Elizabeth on June 12.
Japan
Two days later Japan, who had never won a World Cup match outside their home country before, beat African team Cameroon 1-0 in a Group E match in Bloemfontein.
Switzerland
On June 16 Switzerland, a country associated more with chocolate and clocks than football, defeated Spain 1-0. In case you’ve forgotten, Spain are favourites to win the World Cup and Euro 2008 winners.
Serbia
In a huge blow for Germany, Serbia beat them 1-0. Germany are also considered likely contenders to take the trophy while Serbia sits ten places below them on the Fifa rankings. On the same day North African team Algeria held top-ten team England to a goalless draw in Cape Town.