Who are the World Cup’s biggest overperformers and underperformers?

Clovis Fernandes was just a fan. But he also became a symbol.

Gifted with genial eyes, the moustache of a 19th-century explorer, and always clutching a plastic replica of the World Cup trophy, camera operators in search of colour at Brazil matches usually found him. He attended hundreds of their games, including during a nine-year fight against the cancer which ultimately killed him in 2015, aged 60.

He is remembered for one moment above all else.

July 8, 2014. A World Cup semi-final. Brazil went into the tournament as favourites but experienced their greatest embarrassment on home soil since the Maracanazo against Uruguay at the 1950 finals — Brazil 1-7 Germany.

As the rout unfolded in Belo Horizonte and goal followed goal followed goal, those camera operators once more located Fernandes in the stands and the subsequent images they captured went viral.

Clovis Fernandes watching Brazil’s 7-1 drubbing by Germany in 2014. He died the following year (Photo: Pressefoto Ulmerullstein Bild via Getty Images)

Just as an artist’s brush can capture reflections on water, Fernandes’ tearful expression summed up the shock, disappointment and tragedy of four more lost years for a football-mad nation that has now not won the World Cup for 20 years. He embodied the pain of underachieving in the game’s biggest tournament.

To get a better understanding of underperformance and overperformance at the World Cup, The Athletic has gone through the past seven (which includes all those played since the group stage expanded to its current 32 in 1998) to examine how expectation has matched performance, or otherwise, recognising the context of that time.

Using pre-tournament rankings, each team can be assigned a World Cup-specific ranking between one and 32 which can then be compared with what placing they ultimately achieved.

For example, Japan were ranked 62nd in the world going into the most recent World Cup in Russia four years ago, which puts them 30th of all the competing teams. They ended up going out in the round of 16, giving them an official finish of 15th. So under this model, Japan overperformed by 15 places.

Japan’s forward Yuya Osako celebrates during their group-stage win over Colombia in 2018 (Photo: Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)

Repeating this over the seven tournaments of our sample can provide a snapshot of whether teams have over or underperformed in modern World Cups. (Independently of The Athletic, Australian website The Roar alighted on a similar method, producing its own results.)

It is worth pointing out that the method skews slightly towards smaller nations, for whom getting past the group phase represents a major overperformance. For example, a team ranked 32nd progressing one step further than expected would mean they overperformed by at least 16 places. For a side ranked third, and who would therefore be expected to make the semi-finals, reaching the final would see them gain a maximum of two points.

To mitigate against freak results, we averaged the results out across number of tournaments played, recognising that these lower-ranked countries are less likely to qualify for a World Cup in the first place.

Who are the overperformers?

Let’s start positively. Senegal are the greatest overperformers in the modern World Cup era.

Though they have only qualified three times, including this one, in their 2002 debut they beat reigning champions France in their opening match and went on to make the quarter-finals, losing to Turkey in extra time under the Golden Goal rule, despite being the lowest-ranked team in the competition. They also slightly outperformed expectations four years ago.

Senegal overperform by 14.5 places on average, and would carry greater expectations in Qatar after winning the Africa Cup of Nations this year but for the devastating late loss of star forward Sadio Mane to injury.

That 2002 World Cup also had a big impact on South Korea. The co-hosts were widely expected to make a group-stage exit but instead went all the way to the semi-finals, albeit courtesy of some controversial refereeing decisions.

Their sample size is far larger than Senegal’s, having qualified for all seven of the tournaments we are studying.

South Korea also outperformed expectations in 2010, reaching the knockout stages; and narrowly missed out on doing so again in Russia despite defeating, and sending home, defending champions Germany in the final group game. On average, they overperform by 12.9 places.

German despair as they go out at the group stage after losing to South Korea in 2018 (Photo: Luis Acosta/AFP via Getty Images)

Of what would be considered the major footballing nations, the Netherlands have the best record.

They have never majorly underperformed at a World Cup, although they failed to qualify for 2002 and 2018, and reaching the final in 2010 and finishing third four years later were significant overperformances.

And who disappoints?

Nothing is as memorable as repeated implosions.

Some observers explain repeated underperformance as a curse, turning to the supernatural for rationalisation.

Perhaps unfairly, the Dutch have been described as cursed, losing the final on three occasions (1974, 1978, 2010), but as described above they actually overperform at World Cups more than any other major nation.

So where does true underperformance lie?

Despite winning the thing in 2010, it turns out Spain are the World Cup’s biggest underperformers.

They have only outperformed expectations twice since the start of our sample in 1994, and on each occasion only did so by one place. That triumph in South Africa came when they were ranked second in the world, and they officially finished fifth in 2002 (losing to South Korea on penalties in the quarter-finals) when ranked sixth, but there were major embarrassments in 1998 and as champions in 2014 (two group-stage exits), as well as last-16 losses in 2006 and 2018.

On average, they underperform by over six places.

Just behind Spain are the United States, returning to the World Cup in Qatar after failing to qualify four years ago — the only one of the seven tournaments they have missed. The Americans were highly ranked in 1998 and 2006 but meekly went home after the group stage, while there have been no consistent overperformances to speak of.

On average, they finish five places lower than they should.

Germany surprisingly underperform more than England and France, harmed by that disastrous bottom-of-their-group exit while World Cup holders in 2018. Without that collective stinker in Russia, they would have roughly performed according to expectation.

Daniel Sturridge during England’s failure to beat Costa Rica in 2014 (Photo: Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)

England have only had one true disaster across the seven World Cups (failing to qualify for 1994 doesn’t count in this exercise) — failing to get out of the group in 2014.

France made chaotic group exits in 2002 and 2010 but overperformed by lifting the trophy on their own turf in 1998 and were then surprisingly competent as quarter-finalists in Brazil eight years ago.

Also slightly surprisingly, Portugal — who The Athletic writer covering them quietly fancies to overperform in Qatar — narrowly underperform across our sample, courtesy of the major disappointment of group-stage elimination in 2014 when ranked fourth in the world.

So what does this ultimately tell us?

At its heart, this data is a reassessment of expectations going into the World Cup, but let’s have some fun by applying the average over/underperformance of each team to their current ranking to provide a fresh list of World Cup favourites: a ‘Performance-Adjusted World Cup Ranking’.

Doing this for the top 10 ranked teams in the competition produces the following results.

Belgium become new favourites to lift the trophy on December 18, courtesy of their traditional overperformance at the tournament, and Brazil slip to second. Louis van Gaal’s Netherlands side fly up from seventh to third while Argentina drift from third to sixth.

Their golden generation might be getting long in the tooth, but Roberto Martinez’s Belgians might have one more run in them…

GO DEEPER

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(Top image: Spain get knocked out in 2018’s last-16; photo by Ian MacNicol via Getty Images)