Brazil 1-7 Germany: Five World Cup shocks to rival the battering of Belo Horizonte

The scoreboard says it all - will anything match this result?

It's going to take a very long time before any game comes close to matching Germany's feat in destroying the mighty Brazil 7-1 on home soil, but the following five matches all sent seismic shocks through world football at the time... 

England 0-1 USA, 1950 World Cup Group Stage
England travelled to the World Cup for the first time in 1950, and standing in the way of glory (or at least progression from the group stage) were Spain, Chile and the United States of America. Having beaten Chile 2-0 in the first game, a Three Lions team featuring Alf Ramsey, Billy Wright, Jimmy Dickinson, Stan Mortensen and the great Tom Finney faced a USA team made up of rank amateurs including a teacher, a hearse driver and several postmen. 

Despite beating Portugal 10-0 in Lisbon and Italy 4-0 in the weeks leading up to the tournament, the English somehow conspired to lose 1-0 and the USA recorded the greatest result in the history of their national side, in a game later dubbed 'The Miracle on Grass'.

But, if you think the English were upset, spare a thought for American player Ben McLaughlin - he couldn't feature in the famous win as his company wouldn't give him the time off work.

Hungary 2-3 West Germany, 1954 World Cup Final
In 1954, Hungary were at the apex of world football. Unquestionably the finest international side on Earth, the 'Mighty Magyars' featured the legendary triumvirate of Ferenc Puskas, Sandor Kocsis and Nandor Hidegkuti and played a style of 'Total Football' that would be aped by the Dutch in the 1970s. Not content with dishing out a royal 3-6 beating to England at Wembley the year before, this great side had already dispatched their opponents in the final 8-3 in the group stage and so were supremely confident going into the big game.

A surprise then that, despite going 0-2 up inside eight minutes, the Hungarians somehow conspired to lose 3-2 to their far less illustrious opponents (West Germany didn't even have a formal league setup at the time) in what was considered to be the greatest upset in World Cup history. What's more, the Hungarians didn't even get a chance to avenge their disappointment in 1958 - a revolution in Hungary in 1956 saw the breakup of their national team and the Golden Team never quite fulfilled their potential.

North Korea 1-0 Italy, World Cup 1966 Group Stage
Drawn in a tough group against Soviet Union, Chile and Italy, not many would have fancied the North Koreans to qualify for the quarter-final of the 1966 World Cup hosted in England.

But qualify they did, courtesy of a 1-0 win over an Italy side that featured the great Sandro Mazzola, Gianni Rivera and Enrico Albertosi. Pak Doo-Ik, a man destined to be the answer to a pub quiz question for the rest of his life, secured the win with a fine finish into the bottom corner past Albertosi, and the North Koreans were in dreamland.

It's not as though they were facing a poor Italian side either - the Azzurri went on to win the European Championship two years later.

Argentina 0-1 Cameroon, 1990 World Cup Group Stage
Despite being one of the lowest-scoring World Cups of recent era, Italia 90 still gets men of my age (36 since you ask) misty-eyed. A Gazza-powered England renaissance has much to do with that but there were plenty of other storylines to the tournament, not least of which was Cameroon's bold run to the quarter-finals.

The Indomitable Lions built momentum early with one of the shock results of the tournament - a 1-0 defeat of reigning champions Argentina in the tournament curtain-raiser. The Albiceleste's little genius Maradona had carried all before him in Mexico four years before, and at the age of 30 was in his prime to repeat that tournament win in the country where he played his club football. 

But Cameroon weren't interested in sticking to the script. In a deeply entertaining game, the African team had two men sent off, one coming before Francois Oman-Biyik scored the only goal of the game halfway through the second-half. Betfair didn't arrive for another 12 years but just imagine the in-play prices you'd have got on a Cameroon win on that June day in 1990! 

Spain 1-5 The Netherlands, 2014 World Cup Group Stage
Two European Championships and one World Cup - Spain arrived at Brazil 2014 bidding for a remarkable fourth consecutive international tournament win but we knew something was up from the very first game which the Netherlands won by a remarkable 5-1 scoreline.

Spain actually took the lead halfway through the first-half at which point most observers must have assumed we were in for a routine win for the defending champions. But a dreamy diving header from Robin van Persie stunned the Spanish backline and the Manchester United striker, in tandem with Arjen Robben, tore into Vicente del Bosque's men after the break.   

Individual mistakes from Iker Casillas aided the Dutch cause so heavily but the failure was total with Spain collapsing en masse. And it wasn't a one-off - Spain lost next time out to Chile to exit the tournament at the earliest possible stage.