With Argentina finally fending off a dogged Cape Verde, they have officially avoided the infamous World Cup Champions’ curse.
Winning the World Cup is one of the hardest things to do in football, but what’s even harder is defending it. Of the eight teams to have won the World Cup, only two have successfully defended it.
This reality is what we refer to as the World Cup Champions’ curse, and it comes in two versions.
The Original World Cup Champions’ Curse
In the 96-year history of the World Cup, there have been 22 winners. These 22 winners comprise just eight teams, and only two of them have managed to retain the trophy. Italy defended it in 1934 and 1938, while Brazil achieved the same feat in 1958 and 1962.
With every other reigning champion failing to defend their title, fans started to see the pattern. Once you clinched the title, you couldn’t retain it, and so the myth of the curse of World Cup champions was born.
But it got worse by the turn of the century. Defending champions weren’t just failing to retain the title; they were struggling to stay in the competition. This reality gave birth to an even darker version of the curse.
The Curse Evolves: The Group Stage Disaster Era
This darker version of the World Cup curse started in 2002 with France.
France (2002)
Heading into the 2002 World Cup as reigning champions, nobody looked more confident than the Les Bleus of France.
The team boasted a crop of stars that could penetrate any defence, filled with world-class players like Zinedine Zidane, Thierry Henry, and Patrick Vieira. France were genuine favourites to win the World Cup, but they were met with the biggest shock of the tournament in the opening game.
France kicked off their 2002 World Cup campaign against debutants Senegal, who put up a spirited performance to steal a 1-0 win and record one of the biggest upsets in World Cup history.
That loss rattled the reigning champions as they played a goalless draw against Uruguay before suffering a 2-0 defeat to Denmark in their final group stage game.
France exited the 2002 World Cup without scoring a single goal and became the first defending champion to be eliminated in the group stage since Brazil in 1966.
Italy (2010)
The group stage disaster returned in 2010, as Italy also failed to make it past a relatively weak group. That Italy team looked tired and tactically inept, and they paid dearly for these weaknesses.
Italy drew against Paraguay and New Zealand in their opening two games and needed a win in their final game to qualify. Hopes were high as they prepared to face Slovakia, and there was a genuine belief that they would break the curse.
Instead, they lost 3-2 in a dramatic game that saw them score two late goals despite being 2-0 down for more than 75 minutes. Italy finished at the bottom of their group without winning a single game.
Spain (2014)
In 2014, football had one of the biggest shocks in World Cup history.
Between 2008 and 2012, Spain built one of the strongest teams seen on the international stage. They won two Euros and the 2010 World Cup while changing the game with their possession-based style.
In Brazil at the 2014 World Cup, Spain kicked off their World Cup campaign in a rematch of the 2010 World Cup final. This time, Spain were handed one of the heaviest defeats in World Cup history as the Dutch ran rampant and won 5-1.
The defeat to Spain was followed by a 2-0 loss to Chile, which eliminated the defending champions after just two matches. Spain then hammered Australia 3-0 in their final game as they played for pride and exited the competition in the group stage.
Germany (2018)
If any nation looked capable of ending the curse, it was Germany. The 2014 champions arrived in Russia with a talented squad that made many believe they wouldn’t struggle.
Germany got their World Cup defence off to a bad start as they lost their opening match to Mexico. Knowing they needed to be at their best in their next two games to sniff a chance at qualifying, Germany won their second game against Sweden thanks to a dramatic late winner from Toni Kroos.
That win set up a must-win final group game against South Korea. For a team that needed all three points, Germany was lacklustre in attack.
South Korea then scored twice in stoppage time to secure a historic 2-0 victory, sending Germany out of the tournament and condemning them to a last-place finish in their group.
How France Broke The Defending Champion Curse in 2022
In 2022, France broke the group stage curse that they had started 20 years ago.
Having won the World Cup in 2018, France arrived at the 2022 World Cup with a slightly different squad but still looked like a formidable team both on paper and on the pitch.
Les Bleus started the 2022 World Cup in fine fashion, winning their opening two group stage games before losing 1-0 to Tunisia in their last group game.
Entering the knockout stage, France entered a new gear and started steamrolling their opponents.
In the round of 16 vs Poland, they won 3-1. Against England in the quarter finals, they won 2-1, and against Morocco in the semis, France exerted their superiority against one of the dark horses of the tournament, recording a 2-0 win.
With that run, France became the first defending champions since Brazil in 1998 to reach back-to-back World Cup finals.
At the heart of this run was Kylian Mbappé. In his second World Cup tournament, the French star made the World Cup his playground. He was France’s best player, and he literally dragged the team to the final.
In the final against Argentina, he put up one of the best performances ever seen. Argentina were winning 2-0 with less than ten minutes of regulation time to go. It seemed like Messi would finally get his date with destiny and win the elusive World Cup, while France would succumb to the curse and fail to defend the World Cup trophy.
But in the space of 60 seconds, Mbappé brought his country back from the dead. He converted a penalty in the 80th minute before volleying home an extraordinary equaliser moments later to force the game into extra time.
In extra time, Messi scored in the 108th minute to restore Argentina’s lead, but Mbappé responded with a goal in the 118th minute to level the game and complete an extraordinary hat-trick, becoming the second player in history to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final after Geoff Hurst in 1966.
In what was one of the most intense World Cup finals in history, France came close to successfully defending the title when Kolo Muani found himself through on goal in the dying embers of the game. With much of the goal gaping, the French striker was brilliantly denied by Emiliano Martínez, forcing the game into penalties.
France would later lose the game on penalties, with Messi finally getting his hands on the World Cup trophy. The 2022 final will be remembered as one of the best World Cup finals in history, with France breaking the group stage curse and almost winning back-to-back World Cup titles.
Can Argentina Break The World Cup Champions’ Curse For Good?
For the third time in their history, Argentina entered the World Cup as defending champions. In the first two defending campaigns in 1982 and 1990, Argentina were stunned by Belgium and Cameroon.
Throughout the group stage of the 2026 World Cup, Argentina has avoided any upsets and has breezed safely to the knockout stages.
They have played as a unit with a new type of chemistry and with a unified goal, which is to win the World Cup once again.
Scaloni’s team selection for the World Cup has also pointed to this argument. He chose players who have performed excellently in their respective clubs while maintaining a mix of youth and experience to make the team a well-oiled engine.
In the round of 32, they faced their most difficult challenge yet. Cape Verde, who made their World Cup debut at the 2026 World Cup, held Argentina to a 1-1 draw in regulation time before losing 3-2 in the most cruel manner by an own goal.
If Argentina thought that would be their last scare, Egypt presented an even tougher challenge in the round of 16. The North African side stunned the defending champions by going two goals up under 70 minutes.
The game looked done and dusted, but somehow, Argentina came back from the dead for the second game in a row to win 3-2 in extra time. The round of 16 tie was also riddled with controversy as several members of the Egyptian team said “the ref wasn’t fair” and that “the game was rigged”, similar to complaints from the group stage fixtures that involved Argentina.
The same comeback story continued against Switzerland in the quarter-finals and in the semi-finals vs England while more controversy continued to grow around an Argentine side looking to win back-to-back World Cups.
However, in the final, Argentina were exposed by a brilliant and excellently coached Spain. Spain dominated Argentina from kick-off, leaving Messi and his henchmen chasing the ball and brutally fouling the Spaniards. Although Spain found a way to not put the ball in the back of the net during regulation time, it was a football masterclass from them and a disasterclass from Scaloni’s men.
Argentina had zero shots in 90 minutes, barely had possession, and were racking up yellow cards, with Enzo Fernandez eventually seeing a red.
Having seen a goal disallowed in extra time, Spain continued to pile pressure on Argentina and were rewarded with a goal from Ferran Torres in the 106th minute. That goal was enough to seal victory for the Spaniards and dethrone Argentina as World Cup champions.
Although they had the firepower and excellence to go toe-to-toe with Spain, Argentina were shambolic and horrible in what could be Messi’s last World Cup match. Argentina became the first team in World Cup history not to record a shot in 90 minutes at a World Cup final while also falling under the curse that has plagued the winners of the tournament for the past 74 years.
So the Curse of the World Champions carries on. Let’s see if Spain will finally break it in 2030.
Who wrote this?
Wisdom Aghe is a creative whose passions include sports, video editing, writing and a little bit of design. With these skills and a curious mind, Wisdom takes interest in creating sports content and holding interesting sports conversations. He loves sports and it's his happy place. He spends his leisure time playing football, playing games and reading.
