A Salute to World Cup Fourth Place Finishers
Quick, who finished in third place in the 1994 World Cup? If the answer comes immediately to your head than I admire your ability to recall utterly forgettable things. Even if you did know that Sweden finished third that tournament, you might not remember the fourth place team was Bulgaria. There is no glory in finishing fourth. There is no room on the podium if you aren’t in the top three.
Even if you think the Third Place match is meaningless, there is a reason isn’t called the Fourth Place match. The fourth place team has the dubious distinction of ending the World Cup with two straight losses. After all that work and success to put yourself on the cusp of the World Cup final, in the end your final two games finish the same way they did for Costa Rica, Togo and Serbia and Montenegro.
If there is a consolation for the fourth place team, it is the knowledge that no country has finished fourth in the World Cup more than once. There have been 16 different countries that have finished fourth. That could change tonight if Germany loses to Portugal. West Germany finished fourth in 1958, but you probably already knew that, right?
If the host country does come away with the victory, it will be Portugal’s turn to join the list of the forgotten for the first time.
Here’s hoping for a memorable unmemorable game to decide fourth place.
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Comments
By Dave Hamilton | July 8th, 2006 at 4:05 pm 
Maybe no room on the podium, but the coach of a fourth-place World Cup finisher can make a pretty strong case for a job in the future.
Posted from 
United States
By Merrick Hoover | July 8th, 2006 at 5:22 pm Can someone pls explain to me how Portugal will even keep this close?
Figo out
Carvalho out
Ronaldo hurt
rest of team gutless…
Posted from 
Canada
By Ricardo | July 8th, 2006 at 5:51 pm who said figo + ronaldo will be out????
as the rest of team being gutless, you only have to see the broadcast of portugal vs. france, when the game was decided by the referee, and not the teams LOL
Posted from 
Portugal
By Marcelo | July 8th, 2006 at 6:25 pm It is true that the 3rd or 4th place decider should be scraped in the future.
Posted from 
Malaysia
By CA KL LA | July 8th, 2006 at 6:37 pm Ricardo, did you miss the video clip all over the internet showing your guy’s diving performance against France?
Posted from United States
By football fan | July 8th, 2006 at 7:08 pm Does someone remember “the curse of WC third place”. See recent 3rd finishers : 1990 - Italy, 1994 - Sweden, 1998 - Croatia, 2002 - Turkey. All these teams failed to qualify for the next European Cup (example : Turkey won 3rd place on WC 2002 and failed to qualify for Euro 2004). Will this strange pattern continue ? Only time will tell ………..
Posted from 
Qatar
By Jonny Iselin | July 8th, 2006 at 11:27 pm It won’t continue now because Germany qualifies every time
Posted from United States
By CA KL LA | July 8th, 2006 at 11:35 pm Congratulations to Portugal for being a great sport…
Posted from United States
By PPC Expert | July 10th, 2006 at 10:44 pm Continuing the Curse of the WC 3rd Place… Two of the 3rd finishers Turkey & Sweden failed to qualify for the next World Cup. Turkey missed WC2006 & Sweden missed WC1998. Croatia crashed out in the group stages of WC2002. Only Italy ended up all the way back to the final of WC1994 which they lost to Brazil on penalties.
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