💔 III · Heartbreak & Tears
The penalties missed, the finals lost, the careers ended on a single kick. Baggio's back, Gazza's tears, the Maracanazo that silenced a stadium — the World Cup remembered through its losers.
Part of World Cup
13 moments in this segment.
- — The Maracanazo — Brazil 1, Uruguay 2. Needing only a draw before 200,000 home fans, Brazil concede late to Uruguay and lose the deciding match of the 1950 World Cup. The silence of the Maracanã became a national trauma still spoken of as "o Maracanazo".
- — The Netherlands lose two finals in a row. The brilliant Dutch sides of 1974 and 1978 lost both finals — to West Germany and Argentina, both hosts — making the inventors of Total Football the greatest team never to win the World Cup.
- — Schillaci's tears for the hosts in 1990. Salvatore Schillaci, the breakout star and Golden Boot of Italia 90, was left in tears as the hosts were knocked out in the semi-final shootout — the dream of winning at home gone on penalties.
- — Gazza's tears. Booked in the 1990 semi-final, Paul Gascoigne realises he would miss the final if England got there — and bursts into tears on the pitch. England lost the shootout anyway, but Gazza's tears became one of football's most beloved images.
- — England's first penalty heartbreak — Turin 1990. Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle miss in the 1990 semi-final shootout against West Germany, beginning England's long, painful relationship with World Cup penalties.
- — Andrés Escobar's own goal and murder. Colombia's Andrés Escobar scores an own goal that helps eliminate his team at USA '94; days after returning home he is shot dead. The most tragic story the World Cup has ever known.
- — Roberto Baggio skies the final penalty. The man who carried Italy to the 1994 final steps up in the shootout and blasts his penalty over the bar — handing Brazil the cup. Baggio stands frozen, hands on hips, in the defining image of World Cup heartbreak.
- — Gyan's missed penalty and Suárez's handball. Asamoah Gyan strikes the bar with the last kick of extra time after Luis Suárez handballs on the line to deny Ghana a place in the 2010 semi-final — Africa's best chance to reach a final, lost in the cruellest sequence.
- — Mexico and "el quinto partido". Mexico reached the round of 16 at seven straight World Cups (1994–2018) and lost there every time — the agonising hunt for "el quinto partido", the fifth game, a national obsession and heartbreak.
- — The Mineirazo — Germany 7, Brazil 1. Host Brazil are demolished 7–1 by Germany in the 2014 semi-final, conceding five goals in 18 first-half minutes. Fans wept in the stands as the most humiliating defeat in Brazilian football history unfolded.
- — Croatia's exhausted run to the 2018 final. Croatia won three straight knockout matches in extra time, two on penalties, before losing the 2018 final to France — Luka Modrić's Golden Ball a bittersweet reward for the smallest nation to reach a final in 60 years.
- — Ronaldo's mystery before the 1998 final. Hours before the 1998 final, Ronaldo suffered a convulsive fit; he was pulled from the team sheet, reinstated, and played as a ghost as Brazil lost 3–0 to France. The strangest pre-final drama in World Cup history.
- — The Zambia air disaster. In 1993 nearly the entire Zambia national team died in a plane crash off Gabon en route to a World Cup qualifier — a hastily rebuilt side then came within a game of qualifying, one of football's most moving tragedies.
