North Korea 1-0 Italy (1966)
By Conor Hogan
The date was July 19 1966, the place was Ayresome Park, Middlesbrough.
It’s hard to imagine a bigger upset than this. They were just the second Asian team ever to compete at the World Cup (their predecessors, South Korea, conceded 16 goals in 2 matches in 1954). Nobody outside of Pyongyang had heard of the players, and they’d been heavily beaten in their opening match by fellow communists the Soviet Union.
Italy, on the other hand, started with a comfortable win over Chile and had players such as Sandro Mazzola, Giacomo Bulgarelli, and Gianni Rivera on their team. And they only needed a draw in the match against the Koreans to progress to the next round.
Yet if any team could have messed it up, it was the Italians. Since winning the World Cup in ‘38, they had failed to make the second round on every single occasion. From the 42nd minute (when North Korean army corporal Pak Do-Ik scored an excellent goal) until the 90th, Italy never looked like equalising. If anything, the score-line flattered the Azzuri.
The North Koreans became a neutral’s favourite, and almost caused another shock in the quarter-finals when they took a 3-0 lead against Portugal. They eventually lost 5-3 however, thanks to four goals from Eusebio.
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