There are countless soccer competitions happening around the globe every year. These competitions have many formats and styles, but the main two are league and cup soccer competitions. Big leagues are where the big name players guarantee their paychecks and where their bosses get most of the revenue to fund those large paychecks.
In most of these big league competitions, we usually see a certain monopoly in terms of titles. In Spain, we have the Real Madrid vs. Barcelona duel year after year deciding who takes home the gold, with occasional appearances by Atletico Madrid.
In Italy, we have Internazionale, A.C. Milan, and Juventus sharing most of the Serie A titles. As a matter of fact, the last time a team outside of those three lifted the Italian trophy was in 2000-01, when Francesco Totti’s Roma took the honors.
The Bundesliga is historically dominated by Bayern Munich. The club has 25 national titles. That is 16 championships more than second-placed 1. FC Nurnberg.
Out of Europe’s top leagues, the Premier League, is by far the most balanced, but even though you will hardly ever see an underdog win the title.
Manchester United leads the way in England with 20 national championships. Despite their 25-year hiatus, Liverpool remains a close second with 18 titles.
Cup Soccer
Cup soccer, on the other hand, is where the magic happens.
The Capital One Cup has already provided English fans with two major upsets in the early rounds this season. Sheffield Wednesday was the lucky side in the first big upset of the year as they knocked out Arsenal 3-0 Tuesday.
Not a day later, the Premier League All-Time title leader Manchester United didn’t have enough to see off a scrappy Middlesbrough side, as Louis van Gaal’s club had to face defeat on penalty kicks.
If history repeats itself, as it usually tends to do, these two giant-killings might just be the beginning of the upset season.
Despite results like this, The Capital One Cup (League Cup) is still not as notorious as the FA Cup when it comes to upsets.
Who doesn’t remember Bradford’s heroic 2-4 come-from-behind win against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in the last FA Cup?
Nonetheless, surprises provided by cup competitions aren't confined to national borders. They go all the way up to the World Cup. Yes, the World’s biggest stage has seen its share of giant killings.
Remember when Zinedine Zidane and France defeated Ronaldo’s Brazil to claim the 1998 World Cup title? And how they also won the Euro Cup two years later?
Well, that same French team suffered one of the most shocking defeats in World Cup history in their 2002 debut, when Senegal’s Papa Boub Diop found the bottom of Fabien Barthez’s net and gave his team a 1-0 victory.
The reigning world champions went on to have one of their worst ever showings in World Cup history. France was eliminated in the group stage after drawing with Uruguay and losing to Denmark.
One of the best players ever also had his part in a legendary World Cup upset. Unfortunately for Diego Maradona, he was on the wrong side of this particular upset.
Like France, Argentina was the reigning world champion when they traveled to Italy for the 1990 World Cup. They had the best player in the world at the time and were one of the favorites to win the title.
Their first match was against a resilient Cameroon squad. Nevertheless, the prediction was for the South Americans to bulldoze the African squad. Yet, to this day what happened on that match is still referred to as the “Miracle of Milan.”
Somehow, that 9-man Cameroon squad managed to survive Argentina’s Maradona-led offense and win the game 1-0.
For these and many other giant-killing episodes, it is a given that cup soccer, no matter where it is played, will keep providing fans of the beautiful game with the possibility of watching the impossible happen right before their eyes.
Being it a second-division York City team stunning Manchester United 3-0 at Old Trafford, or Uruguay silencing almost 200,000 Brazilian fans in 1950.
