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

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

Endowed with cool eyes, the mustache of a 19th-century explorer and always holding a plastic replica of the World Cup trophy, cameramen looking for color at Brazil matches usually found him. He attended hundreds of his games, including during a nine-year battle with cancer that finally killed him in 2015, at age 60.

He is remembered for a moment above all else.

July 8, 2014. A World Cup semi-final. Brazil entered the tournament as favourites, but experienced their biggest embarrassment at home since the Maracanazo against Uruguay in the 1950 final: Brazil 1-7 Germany.

As the rout in Belo Horizonte unfolded, and goal after goal after goal unfolded, those cameramen once again located Fernandes in the stands and the subsequent footage they captured went viral.

Just as an artist’s brush can capture reflections in water, Fernandes’ tearful expression summed up the shock, disappointment and tragedy of four more lost years for a soccer-mad nation that has gone 20 years without winning the World Cup. World. He embodied the pain of underperformance in the biggest tournament in the game.

To gain a better understanding of underperforming and overperforming in the World Cup, the athletic has gone through the last seven (which includes all those played since the group stage was expanded to the current 32 in 1998) to examine how expectations have matched performance, or otherwise, acknowledging the context of that time.

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

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

Repeating this across all seven tournaments in our sample can provide a snapshot of whether teams have outperformed or underperformed in modern World Cups. (Regardless of the athleticthe Australian website The Roar relied on a similar method, producing its own results).

It’s worth noting that the method skews slightly towards smaller nations, for whom getting past the group stage represents a lot of outperformance. For example, a 32nd ranked team moving one step further than expected would mean that they performed better by at least 16 places. For a team that was ranked third and thus would be expected to make it to the semi-finals, reaching the final would see them earn a maximum of two points.

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

Who are the high performers?

Let’s start positive. Senegal is the best player in the modern era of the World Cup.

Although they have only qualified three times, including this one, on their debut in 2002 they beat reigning champions France in their opening game and reached the quarter-finals, losing to Turkey after extra time under the Golden Goal rule, despite of being the worst ranked team in the competition. They also slightly exceeded expectations from four years ago.

Senegal outperforms by 14.5 places on average, and would raise expectations in Qatar after winning the Africa Cup of Nations this year were it not for the devastating late loss of star striker Sadio Mane to injury.

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

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

South Korea also exceeded expectations in 2010, reaching the knockout stages; and came close to doing it again in Russia despite defeating and sending defending champions Germany home in the final group game. On average, they outperform by 12.9 places.

Of what would be considered the top footballing nations, the Netherlands has the best record.

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

And who disappoints?

Nothing is as memorable as repeated implosions.

Some observers explain repeated poor performance as a curse, turning to the supernatural for rationalization.

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

So where does the real underachievement lie?

Despite winning the thing in 2010, it turns out that Spain is the worst player in the World Cup.

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

On average, they underperform by more than six places.

Just behind Spain is the United States, which returns to the World Cup in Qatar after failing to qualify four years ago, the only one of the seven tournaments it has missed. The Americans were prominent in 1998 and 2006, but meekly went home after the group stage, while there has been no consistent outperformance to speak of.

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

Shockingly, Germany underperforms England and France, hurt by that disastrous exit from the bottom of their group, while the 2018 World Cup champions. Without that stinking collective in Russia, they would have underperformed. or less according to expectations.

England have only had one real disaster in all seven World Cups (failing to qualify for 1994 doesn’t count in this exercise): they failed to make it out of the group in 2014.

France made chaotic group exits in 2002 and 2010, but outperformed by lifting the trophy on their home turf in 1998 and then were surprisingly competent as a quarter-finalist in Brazil eight years ago.

Also somewhat surprisingly, Portugal, which the athletic The writer covering them quietly thinks he’s an overperformer in Qatar – a slightly underperformer in our sample, courtesy of the huge disappointment of knocking out the group stage in 2014 when he was ranked fourth in the world.

So what does this ultimately tell us?

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

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

Belgium became the new favorites to lift the trophy on December 18, courtesy of their traditionally superior performance in the tournament, and Brazil slipped to second place. Louis van Gaal’s Dutch team rises from seventh to third, while Argentina moves from third to sixth.

His golden generation might be getting old, but Roberto Martínez’s Belgians could have one more career in them…

(Top image: Spain knocked out in the 2018 round of 16; photo by Ian MacNicol via Getty Images)