The Top 5 Worst Football Teams in the World. Ever.

I've been wondering about which team really is the worst ever to have set foot on a football pitch, and it really is hard to be objective when football is mostly opinion and you're bound to hear people claim that Manchester United are the worst team in the world - "fact".

So I did a bit of research and found out that there are teams out there who have been striving to become the worst team in the world. Football teams that have gone to great lengths to prove that you don't have to win just to enjoy the game. Teams that keep on going, no matter how many goals the opposition score and no matter how much their own fans want to kill them. Here are my top 5 worst teams ever - and if you have any suggestions, drop us a line in the comments box below.

5. Sunderland, 2003 & 2006
While Derby County are officially the worst team in Premiership history, Sunderland get onto the list through sheer perseverence. Because they did it twice. In 2003, they were simply shocking - which is made even more surprising by the way they were promoted from the Championship. They took just 19 points all season and were sent right back down. When they came back in 2006, they did everything they could to get relegated before Christmas and break their own shameful record. Rubbish, just rubbish. And they were managed by a man who looked like that eagle from the Muppets.

4. The Maldives, 1997
Today, the Maldives have sorted themselves out and qualified for the second stage of qualifying for the 2006 World Cup - not bad for a nation made up almost exclusively of water. They even got a valiant 0-0 draw with South Korea. However, 1997 was an awful year for the Maldives football team, who were so short that Iran reduced them to tears by keeping the ball in the air. Brilliant.Iran beat them 17-0 in the Maldives with ten headed goals in the first half, and then won 9-0 in the return game in Teheran.

Things got so bad for the Maldives that the head of the Iranian football association told his team to take it easy on their opposition. Syria didn't bother - they beat the Maldives 12-0. And they had so much fun, they did it again. 12-0. So in qualifying that year, they played six, lost six, scored none, conceded 59. Fantastic.

3. Zaire, 1974
The leopards of Zaire were proud to be the first African side in the World Cup finals, but less proud at having been the worst team in the history of the World Cup. They arrived seemingly unaware of the rules of the game, and when Mwepu Ilunga ran out of the defensive wall to boot the ball downfield before Brazil could take their free kick, the world laughed.

Zoran Vidinic, their Yugoslavian coach, denies any wrongdoing despite his team's 9-0 defeat to... wait for it... Yugoslavia. Despite being the first African team in the finals, however, Zaire weren't even paid. Ilunga should be claiming royalties from Youtube!

2. East Stirlingshire, 2004
In 2003-2004, East Stirlingshire were lucky to avoid the ignominious record of the least number of points ever in the Scottish leagues. They garnered just eight points all season, which resulted in a book being written about the famous year - entitled 'Pointless'. Charming.

However, all was not lost for East Stirlingshire. They managed to win over the hearts of 6,000 people in Norway who all fell in love with the club after a feature on their worst ever season. The East Stirlingshire fan club is still alive and kicking today.

1. Staindrop Royal Oak
You may not have heard of old Staindrop, but they truly deserve the title of the worst team ever to have played football. Between 2006 and 2008, they managed to lose 64 games - out of 65. In that time, they scored only 17 and conceded a whopping 178 goals.

In fact, the most impressive stats is that their two strikers weigh a combined total of 38 stone. Lee Bailey, pictured, has managed to cut down from fifteen pints to ten pints a night, so maybe the team will start going places.

published: 8th January 2009 by Free Bet Bookmaker

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