The 2022 World Cup is well and truly underway, and five days of action have already presented us with England biggest ever opening game win and perhaps the most shocking upset in the tournament’s history.
With 51st-ranked Saudi Arabia claiming the unlikeliest of victories against World Cup betting frontrunners Argentina, it got us thinking here at Sportslens about the worst teams to have graced the World Cup.
Of course, Saudi’s performance was a far cry from the perceived pre-tournament notions that they would be among the worst teams at this year’s competition.
However, in this article we will take a look at a collection of nations who boast a winless record at the World Cup.
19 Winless World Cup Nations
A grand total of 19 countries have so far failed to win a single game in the World Cup’s 92-year history.
Only one team, Indonesia, boast a played-one-lost-one record when they featured in the third iteration of the tournament back in 1938.
Dutch East Indies as they were known at the time, lost their one and only fixture of that year with just 16 teams competing, falling to a heavy 6-0 drubbing against eventual finalists Hungary.
13 Countries Have Competed at One Finals Without Winning
Canada, who featured against Belgium earlier this week, are competing for only the second time in their history having made their debut 36 years ago in Mexico.
They are one of 13 teams to have featured at a World Cup just once while failing to pick up a single win. The others include DR Congo, Trinidad and Tobago, Angola, Iceland, Kuwait, Israel, Iraq, Togo, Panama, UAE, China and Haiti.
Meanwhile, El Salvador, who last appeared in 1982, and New Zealand (1982 and 2010) have featured across two tournaments without winning a single game.
The Three Worst Nations in World Cup History
Just three teams have competed at the World Cup three times and walked away without a single point.
Coming it at third are Egypt, who were the first African nation to compete at the tournament back in 1934. Rather incredibly, ‘The Pharaohs’ are the outright most successful team in Africa having won the Cup of Nations a record seven times, but their less than favourable World Cup record is in stark contrast having registered zero wins and two draws across seven games.
Elsewhere, Bolivia narrowly escape the unwanted ‘worst World Cup nation’ label having featured in six games across the 1930, 1950 and 1994 tournaments.
The South Americans managed to pick up just one draw in 1994 in a rather underwhelming 0-0 stalemate against South Korea.
However, Honduras hold the worst World Cup record of any nation having competed in nine games across three tournaments, with the most recent appearance coming in Brazil 2014.
Los Catrachos finished rock-bottom in World Cup qualifying for 2022 meaning they won’t feature for the first time since 2006. However, they have largely been cannon fodder for larger nations, drawing just three of their nine matches across there tournament appearances.
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