World Cup Facts: Longest Streaks

Whether you’re a die hard fan who will lay down in the street and wait to be run over and killed when your team is eliminated from the tournament, or whether you wil simply go and cheer for Portugal or Brazil once Portugal or Brazil is eliminated, there’s this little thing called the World Cup of football that you will be unable to avoid wherever you are on this planet in the upcoming month.

Yesterday I went through a bunch of all time facts about the World Cup, but today we’re going to take a look at some of the all time best streaks that have occured in the tournament’s history (unfortunately, we’re not talking about the kind of streaking as seen above). So without further ado, here are some top streaks from the World Cup:

  • Italy (1934, 1938) and Brazil (1958, 1962) have won the most consecutive world cups at two.
  • Germany (1982-1990) and Brazil (1994-2002) have made the most consecutive finals appearances at three in a row each.
  • Brazil has made the most consecutive world cups, appearing in all 19 tournaments.
  • Luxembourg has attempted to qualify for the tournament 18 times (1934-2010). They have failed 18 times in a row.
  • Brazil holds the record for most consecutive wins (11 from 2002-2006) as well as most games without a loss (13 from 1958-1966).
  • Mexico has the worst losing streak, having 9 straight losses from 1930-1958. Ouch.
  • To add insult to injury, during that same losing streak, Mexico also formed another record; most consecutive matches allowing 2 or more goals in a match.
  • Bulgaria was winless for 17 straight matches from 1962-1994.
  • Brazil and Germany both found the net in 18 straight matches. That is a whole lotta scoring action.
  • From 1930-1954, Uruguay scored 2 goals or more in every world cup match they played.
  • From 1934-1994, Switzerland just couldn’t keep their sheets clean. They allowed at least 1 goal in 22 straight world cup matches.

Also see: World Cup Statistics | World Cup Facts: Individual Achievements | All Time World Cup Facts.


Zan Rathore, the author of this post, also writes the Zan Rathore’s Sports Blog.

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