💔 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
14 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.
- - Kansas City watches the USA go out. Belgium beat the United States 4-1 in the round of 16, ending the host nation's run at its own World Cup. Filmed at a Kansas City watch party as the chanting turned to silence.
