The Most Embarrassing Defeats in Soccer History

There have been a few games in global soccer history that saw many goals scored and others that brought highly skilled, professional teams to their knees against a lesser opponent. Let’s go over some of the most embarrassing defeats in soccer history.
Some soccer games, movies, and plays are so bad that some viewers consider going to the box office to demand a refund. In the case of a very lopsided 2009 match between Tottenham Hotspur and Wigan Athletic, the team actually chose to refund Wigan Athletic fans who travelled to the game.
Wigan fans, and in many ways Hotspur fans, weren’t subjected to the worst first half, with Tottenham only up 1-0. After the half, the floodgates opened rather wide, and Jermain Defoe scored 5 goals, with more players joining the parade, leaving Wigan Athletic fans astonished at a 9-1. At least Wigan scored a goal, right?
The defeat is the worst in the club’s history — so bad that the club captain, Mario Melchiot, said that “this is a gesture we have to make to pay them back for their tremendous loyalty”. We are sure the fans appreciated being compensated for watching their team get shell-shocked, and honestly, we wish that pro sports teams would refund fans more often for terrible performances. If some musical artists can do that, why not sports teams, too?
In 1995, the Premier League had only recently begun, and Manchester United and Ipswich Town were preparing to face off again. Earlier in the season, Ipswich Town defeated Manchester United with a completely reasonable score of 1-0, but it’s uncommon for a modern Premier League team to put up nine goals against a competitor they had just recently defeated.
Still, Manchester United pulled it off, as Ipswich set an early record for goal-scoring in one game for the league. They have Andy Cole to thank for scoring five goals, while Mark Hughes added two. Unfortunately, no refund awaited Ipswich Town fans for the lacklustre match.
Given the high-scoring games we’ve presented so far, one might expect England to beat Iceland handily with eight or nine goals. Not this time. England took on Iceland in the Euro qualifying round of 16 just a few days after a referendum announced the beginning of the “Brexit” process, providing a potential distraction in addition to having a team of part-time players. Iceland, on the other hand, wasn’t exactly favoured and was the smallest nation ever to make it to the quarter-finals of the tournament.
England would lose the game 2-1, even with renowned skill players like Wayne Rooney and Harry Kane battling for their side. As a result, Roy Hodgson expectedly lost his job, and the 34th-ranked team in the world took down a world powerhouse in global soccer.
The Milton Keynes team hadn’t even been around for that long, having started playing in 2004 when they took down Manchester United in the second round of the 2014 Capital One Cup. MK most certainly wasn’t expected to win, much less to shut down Manchester United and hold them to their first shot on goal 72 minutes into the match.
There are some potential reasons for the sound defeat of a Premier League team by a League Two team. First, United started with some inexperienced players; second, even their backups and less seasoned veterans should have been more than capable of at least a closer fight.
Let’s go back just a little further in time and look at a massive defeat from the turn of the millennium. American Samoa took on Australia for a World Cup qualification match. While most soccer players would predict that Australia is the more powerful team and would easily defeat the small island nation of American Samoa, they would be mostly right but probably wouldn’t have bet on a 31-0 defeat. Yes, that’s the correct score, as Archie Thompson himself scored a stunning 13 times.
FIFA changed the rules following this defeat and required teams from the Oceania region to play a preliminary round to ensure a more qualified team would make it through to the big stage.
In 2014, Brazil was preparing to play against Germany for the 2014 World Cup semi-final at home, with many fans in attendance fully expecting a win, even without their star player, Neymar. Unfortunately, they didn’t get a win or even a close game. Instead, Germany struck with precision and speed, netting the ball five times in the opening 30 minutes with four goals coming in just seven minutes. Germany’s passing simply overwhelmed the Brazilian defence over and over again, with Brazil winning the game 7-1.
Some games just don’t turn out the way teams — or players who place bets on them via gambling sites available to join — want them to go, leading to either a high-scoring route or a loss for a team that should readily dismantle another. These games were fun to watch for the winning teams and likely led to coaching changes or, at the very least, an awkward trek home for the losing side. Still, most soccer teams have their day, and just like when Ipswich beat Manchester, the next match might prove easier.