Your country's worst performance

[robbert_o154]

Holland - Argentina, 0-0, WC 2006, final group match

Both teams had already qualified so there wasn't anything at stake anymore. Holland couldn't string two passes together and Argentina, through short bursts of activity, a splendid pass here, a faboulous dribble there, showed that they could have easily whipped our asses sore but just couldn't be bothered to do so, which for some reason was even more humiliating than a real thrashing would have been. After the match the media boasted that "Holland had shown themselves the equal of a world class team like Argentina". In the second round against Portugal, we sank without a trace.

[Ricky Riccardo]

getting knocked out of the second round to an international diving team who went on to win the world cup

[Pukey]

Really can't remember anything worse than our performance against Algeria.

[georginho_juventusygr]

Tore André Flo.

[Samamatara]

Holland 5 - 0 South Korea 98

not many managers have been sacked during the world cup have they?

our manager got sacked after this, and the funny thing is that the Holland manager at the time Guus Hiddink, gave us the glorious run to the semi final in 2002

[Ricky Riccardo]

Holland 5 - 0 South Korea 98

not many managers have been sacked during the world cup have they?

our manager got sacked after this, and the funny thing is that the Holland manager at the time Guus Hiddink, gave us the glorious run to the semi final in 2002

such a great man that Guus

[Emperor J]

USA 0-5 Mexico (2009 CONCACAF Gold Cup Final)

Yes it was the B-team for us and it had only come a month after getting to the final of the Confederations Cup, but that 2nd half when all 5 Mexican goals were scored was absolutely shocking.

[Marquez]

This is the one I was old enough to watch: http://www.mackolik.com/Mac/123279/Malta-Turkiye

We also had some 7-0 losses to England

[mcsheffreygreat]

For feeling like utter crap, the Croatia game where we lost 3-2 was dreaful. But performance-wise, yeah, the Algeria game was probably the worst.

[AllStar4]

I see that USA's losses to Mexico and the Czech Republic have already been covered. Two miserable days.

[Razzler]

I guess we can draw some similarities with the 1986 World Cup (along with potential 1/4 final exit to Argentina?) when we lost to Portugal (not the kind of Portugal we have now) and then drew 0-0 with Morocco .. that performance was appalling, Wilkins sent off, Robson injured and then ... LINEKAR!!!

Linekar pulled it around against Poland with a hat trick ... can Rooney be this tournament's Linekar? Nah, probably not but Morocco has to be up there for terrible performance + big stage

[William Hall]

Australia 0 - 4 Germany

[Daaaaave]

steve sampson and 1998

[nattai]

Prolly Croatia 7 - Australia 0, it was a warmup game for them in the lead up to the 1998 WC. Sure, they went on to show they were quite a good team in that comp, but we were horrible. It was Venebales last game managing us, and no once cared anymore. Otherwise there was a 6-0 loss to Brazil in the confed cup final and, of course, that loss to Germany...

[Boltman]

How many Englishmen does it take to realise there's no such player as "Linekar"?

[Razzler]

I was going with Mick Channon's pronounciation during Mexico '86

[Boltman]

You're not the first offender mate, it's just something that's become a bit of a bugbear of mine lately. The equivalent of us going on about "Kenny Dalgleesh"

Maybe I should take this opportunity to also have a minor rant about "should of" and "had too" while I'm at it. I wish there was a moderator blessed with insight and a compassion for the future of humanity such as he would instantly incinerate all such transgressors....but alas........

Oh, and another bloody thing; apostrophe blight, i.e. any word ending in "s" seems to have an erroneous " ' " inserted before the "s" these days. Doe's my bloody head in so it doe's

[Micado]

Here in Brazil there are conspiracy theories too that Brazil were made to lose by Nike, and some say that in exchange for that Brazil won in 2002.

First time I heard this one, but why, I mean why, France is being sponsored by Adidas, can't believe that Nike would want them to have the WC winners..

[Razzler]

Yeah, that's rubbish. Wish we could get Nike doing that for us, ffs, beating Slovenia would do, do we need Nike for that, New Balance should cover it

[Boltman]

2022 World Cup sponsored by Tunnock's Teacakes and Irn Bru = Scotland nailed on favourites please

[Red_Hector]

Paul Bodin's penalty ftl, changed Welsh football forever!!!

Bodin's penalty was a bad moment but the worst performance when it mattered was definitely Wales 0 - 1 Russia in the playoff second leg for a place at Euro 2004. We were just utterly terrible and sterile for the whole game. I've never been so gutted after a game in all my life.

[davehanson]

England v Finland (2000), just after Keegan's last game in charge.

Howard Wilkinson took charge on a caretaker basis. We drew 0-0 and I remember it being one of the worse games ever and one of the most 'boring' line-ups ever, no flair in the team - the Wilkinson way.

If people think things are bad now they should back to the days of Graham Taylor (Carlton Palmer et al)

[RBKalle]

It's quite difficult picking just ONE worst performance, considering how godawful Norwegian football has become (again) over the last years...

The 3-1 loss in Montenegro and 3-0 in Wales were really unforgivable, but all in all it was just friendlies...

In terms of actual impact on the team, the home loss to Bosnia in Euro08 qualifiers killed the whole campaign.

However, keeping it about yesteryear, the two lucky draws against Icelend have been pretty disheartening... When you struggle to get away with one point against the traditional Poor Cousin, you know the team is in really deep... ehm... trouble.

[Razzler]

England v Finland (2000), just after Keegan's last game in charge.

Howard Wilkinson took charge on a caretaker basis. We drew 0-0 and I remember it being one of the worse games ever and one of the most 'boring' line-ups ever, no flair in the team - the Wilkinson way.

If people think things are bad now they should back to the days of Graham Taylor (Carlton Palmer et al)

Ray Parlour hit the bar and it seemingly bounced over the line IIRC. It was poor but don't think it was the worst.

I also remember the ridiculous calls for "drop the lot of them and get the youth in" ... we'd drawn with Finland (who still weren't bad then and also drew with Germany) and lost home to Germany.

2nd place and a play off was well within our grasp and I also thought we could beat Germany over there if we woke the feck up!

Nothing like massive panic, eh, we're on the verge of "bring the Youth in" now as well

[Qolumbo]

Losing 6-0 to Russia back in 1995.

[ATW]

the belarus game at hampden was quite the shocker as well. i know we were pretty much pumped in terms of qualifying, but was still awful.

scotland have far too many games to choose from

Nope you're wrong. The Belarus game is the worst game ever at Hampden in a competative nature in the last 10 years. And we were a shoe in for qualification (or at least a play-off (were there playoffs that season) if we won that game. Especially when we went and hammered Slovenia after it. The 0-0 over in Belarus was not much better either.

Never forgiven Walter Smith for being outsmarted by the Belarussian coach that day. Totally tactically inept that game.

[HUFC]

Australia's 31–0 win against American Samoa - we were awful in that match

[DJ]

Netherlands - Malta 1-0 (penalty). This was the team with Gullit, van Basten, Rijkaard, name 'em. Somewhere in the 90s. I paid ƒ40 and the travel from Nijmegen to Rotterdam for that. Atrocious. Yes, I heartily booed the team for that 'effort'.

I disagree with our worst game being the one against Ireland for the 2002 qualifyers. That game was majorly unlucky (30-ish shots on goal) as well as home reffing of the worst kind. Combine that with a ridiculous last minute penalty against us in the game (versus Spain) before (which made it a draw instead of a win, leaving Ireland with needing a draw instead of a win). Still think FIFA wanted us out for the suspect and highly selective Nandrolon stories that saw de Boer and Davids (and others) banned for a while.

[Lower Leagues Rule]

In this World Cup our worst result is New Zealand 1 Slovakia 1. Our best result has to be NZ 1 Italy 1.

[Rhino]

Netherlands - Malta 1-0 (penalty). This was the team with Gullit, van Basten, Rijkaard, name 'em. Somewhere in the 90s. I paid ƒ40 and the travel from Nijmegen to Rotterdam for that. Atrocious. Yes, I heartily booed the team for that 'effort'.

I disagree with our worst game being the one against Ireland for the 2002 qualifyers. That game was majorly unlucky (30-ish shots on goal) as well as home reffing of the worst kind. Combine that with a ridiculous last minute penalty against us in the game (versus Spain) before (which made it a draw instead of a win, leaving Ireland with needing a draw instead of a win). Still think FIFA wanted us out for the suspect and highly selective Nandrolon stories that saw de Boer and Davids (and others) banned for a while.

What about that time we beat you?

[DJ]

What about that time we beat you?

We = Australia? When? Can't even remember that tbh so it was either not so bad or I'm in utter denial about it

Or we = England? That 4-1 I presume. We didn't play that badly. England was on fire that day, credit where credit's due.

[Rhino]

Pffft, are you trying to annoy me?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/scotland/3256987.stm

[Micado]

I disagree with our worst game being the one against Ireland for the 2002 qualifyers. That game was majorly unlucky (30-ish shots on goal) as well as home reffing of the worst kind. Combine that with a ridiculous last minute penalty against us in the game (versus Spain) before (which made it a draw instead of a win, leaving Ireland with needing a draw instead of a win). Still think FIFA wanted us out for the suspect and highly selective Nandrolon stories that saw de Boer and Davids (and others) banned for a while.

Was Portugal in the WC2002 qualifiers iirc

W

Or we = England? That 4-1 I presume. We didn't play that badly. England was on fire that day, credit where credit's due.

True, we were lucky to get a goal by Kluivert which send us to the next round.

[Micado]

Pffft, are you trying to annoy me?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/scotland/3256987.stm

Then surely the return leg must have been your worst performance, what was it 6-0 ??

[ATW]

Was Portugal in the WC2002 qualifiers iirc

True, we were lucky to get a goal by Kluivert which send us to the next round.

You say lucky, we say fix

[DJ]

Pffft, are you trying to annoy me?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/scotland/3256987.stm

My humble apologies :o

Indeed, I had forgotten about that one. Must have been because it didn't have any consequences (return leg sort of corrected it IIRC ).

[Divinity]

Pff DJ Australia have won the last two matches against Oranje, and drew the one before that!

[RedStarBelgrade]

Perhaps loss to argentina in 2006 WC, they demolished us 6-0, or on euro 2000 a 6-1 loss to

Netherlands, or a 2-1 loss to Kazahstan in 2004 ECQ, or it was loss to Azerbaijan 2-1 in 2002 WCQ. It's really hard to tell....

[miketheheadlesschicken]

Then surely the return leg must have been your worst performance, what was it 6-0 ??

Probably not even in the top 5 under Berti Vogts. The first half of the 2-2 draw in the Faroes (we were 2-0 down at half time) is easily the worst Scotland performance I've seen.

[dinamo_zagreb]

Prolly Croatia 7 - Australia 0, it was a warmup game for them in the lead up to the 1998 WC. Sure, they went on to show they were quite a good team in that comp, but we were horrible. It was Venebales last game managing us, and no once cared anymore. Otherwise there was a 6-0 loss to Brazil in the confed cup final and, of course, that loss to Germany...

I was on that game... first Croatia match for me... and seven nil win... what can you want more (more came next month, winning third place in France)

f ucking Thuram

we could have won World Cup on debut

[Rhino]

Then surely the return leg must have been your worst performance, what was it 6-0 ??

My humble apologies :o

Indeed, I had forgotten about that one. Must have been because it didn't have any consequences (return leg sort of corrected it IIRC ).

Yeah, we sort of forgot that game was over two legs.

And no, the return leg doesn't count as our worst performance, as to lose to the Netherlands, even by six goals, is nowhere near as bad as some of the other dross results we've had!

You guys absolutely tore us a new one that night.

[khriztian]

Almost all games of Chile in the 2002 and 2006 WC Quals, when we played a coward and attackles football instead of the beautiful football we play now. Thanks to Bielsa that we now play real football!

[yovan]

There are only lots of different people saying different things about what happened, but there is no official explanation about this yet.

Here in Brazil there are conspiracy theories too that Brazil were made to lose by Nike, and some say that in exchange for that Brazil won in 2002.

A Brazilian guy told me that this weekend.

He also told me that the game between Brazil and Argentina in 1990 was fixed.

[PMLF]

I don't know why people believe in those things, even though it's very reasonable to dislike Nike's relationship with Brazil's national team, they don't really as much power as people make them have...

But Brazil i supposed to always win, so people will always invent explanations for the defeats (like 1990 and 1998).

[yovan]

I think he said that Maradona and Careca fixed that game in 1990, but I wasn't sober at all tbf.

[PMLF]

Well, Maradona

[yovan]

Well, Maradona

It's funny because the conversation started with that game/WC. Then he said that all the WCs were fixed and I think he said that Maradona was at Barça in 1990. He didn't even know the whole story.

[PMLF]

1990 is almost when he was leaving Napoli already.

The idea that WCs were fixed is something I've heard before too, the fact some involved dictatorships related to the WC champions in some way (like 1934, 1938, 1970 and 1978) and some like 1966 are also controversial doesn't help much to convince them they are wrong...

[Boltman]

There have definitely been some suspicious matches in World Cups through the years, Argentina 6-0 Peru in 1978 springs to mind immediately, and while I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn certain countries had bought off officials or opponents, I don't believe FIFA or the likes of Nike are rigging entire tournaments.

[yovan]

1990 is almost when he was leaving Napoli already.

The idea that WCs were fixed is something I've heard before too, the fact some involved dictatorships related to the WC champions in some way (like 1934, 1938, 1970 and 1978) and some like 1966 are also controversial doesn't help much to convince them they are wrong...

In the past, maybe. I don't know if they were fixed, but the home team had to play the final.

He was saying that football wasn't real anymore though when actually now it's more difficult to fix a WC. Although of course we had the disgrace that was 2002...

About, 2002, apparently Spain had like 6 disallowed goals in two games. Against Ireland and South Korea. I say apparently, because I don't remember the game against Ireland, hear that on the official 2002 DVD recently.