The latest team to get the Champions Curse was Germany when they failed to qualify to the knockout stages after winning the trophy in 2014.
Football fans and athletes in general are superstitious which makes fans produce quite a-lot of theories, stats and myths in the beautiful game. It adds a whole new meaning to the game that everyone with a passion dissects to find the hidden meaning to the theories. One of the most infamous was Paul the Octopus’s picture perfect prediction for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
One of the most famous curses that no one can explain to this day is “The World Cup Curse”. Let’s dive deep into this infamous curse and figure out how much truth is in this.
Is there any truth to “World Cup Curse”?
The World Cup Curse started off as just a fluke but it has been targeting the teams that won the World Cup. After seeing such tumbling down performances from the teams in the next world cup who won the trophy in the previous edition, fans began to speculate it to be a curse of the champions.
Famous example of this curse will always be Germany who dominated the 2014 edition of the tournament and won the tournament. One of their iconic victories came against the host nation Brazil where they annihilated them with a 7-1 victory. But in the next tournament, they were knocked out by losing to Mexico and South Korea. Prior to the World Cup of 2018, they had won the Confederations Cup in 2017. That was one of the reasons Germany were favourites to win the World Cup again in 2018.
Italy won the World Cup in 2006 when they had the best squad at the time. Same expectations were set towards the Italian nation when they competed in 2010. Italy were the favourites to win the tournament but heavy defeats in the group stage saw the Italian giants crash out of the competition. It’s up-to France at FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 to break the curse. FIFA World Cup 2022 is a perfect place for France to qualify to the knockout stages of the tournament as FIFA World Cup 2022 groups are in favour of the reigning champions.
When did the World Cup Curse started?
It started way back when France won the 1998 FIFA World Cup and defended their crown jewel in the 2002 World Cup, but eventually got eliminated from the tournament in the group stage. The victim list of the teams who won the World Cup but got eliminated in the next tournament is as follows:
- France (2002)
- Italy (2010)
- Spain (2014)
- Germany (2018)
This curse seems to only affect the European teams as Brazil progressed through to the Knockout stages in the 2006 after winning the World Cup in 2002.
Will the Curse of the Champions come back to haunt France?
From the looks of things, France might already be getting the champion curse as Ballon D’Or winner of 2022 Karim Benzema picked up an injury in the training session with national team. Even though he is out, France’s attack still looks deadly at the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. However, teams with an even better squad have been a victim of the curse. So we’ll have to wait and see.
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