Advertisement
Opinion
Why underdogs like Alexandra Eala, Cabo Verde, Dear You fascinate us
Money still shapes the balance of power, but every so often a team, player or film will rise up to challenge the status quo and inspire us
3-MIN READ3-MIN
Listen
Bernard Chan, born in 1965, is a Hong Kong businessman.
Every Fifa World Cup begins with a script based on rankings, reputations and player salaries. Every World Cup also produces a few teams determined to tear up that script. This summer, the most memorable stories came from beyond the usual nations in the form of smaller sides such as Cabo Verde or Curacao, the smallest nation ever to qualify for the tournament. Their performances gave the expanded tournament some of its most compelling moments.
For many viewers, the underdog has a natural pull. It is not the promise of victory that draws people but the effort required simply to stay in the contest. Their presence unsettles the script. The result no longer feels preordained. Football has always made room for that uncertainty. So have film, politics and, more often than we admit, ordinary life.
Cabo Verde was one of the most striking stories of the World Cup. In a tournament that usually rewards depth, continuity and the established order of global football, the island nation arrived with something less measurable but no less powerful: conviction. It opened with a goalless draw against Spain and carried that momentum through the group stage before eventually bowing out to Argentina in the knockout stages.
Tennis has offered its own version of the script being unsettled. At the Mubadala DC Open, Filipina outsider Alexandra Eala defeated former world No 1 Naomi Osaka, Elina Svitolina and top seed Jessica Pegula to claim her first Women’s Tennis Association 500 title. Her run became a source of pride for Filipinos across the world, much as Cabo Verde’s footballers rallied their island nation around an unexpected World Cup campaign.
It is tempting to treat such developments as pleasant subplots. That is how tournaments tend to go. The favourites tighten up, the depth gap starts to show and things return to form, but it never feels quite complete when that is all there is. Part of the appeal of a World Cup is that, for a few games at least, the hierarchy wobbles. The favourites usually prove why they are considered such, but those stretches when the outcome looks uncertain are why many people keep watching.
The pattern isn’t limited to sport. In artificial intelligence, Chinese start-up DeepSeek has become its own kind of underdog story, surprising larger Western labs by releasing models trained and run at a fraction of their reported costs yet still competing near the top end of performance.
Advertisement
Select Voice
Select Speed
1.00x