After France, Italy and Spain all got knocked out of the World Cup as defending champions we all thought Germany was going to follow the steps of Brazil and break that curse.
But it was a bad day for the World Champions as they lost by 2 goals to 0 against South Korea.
The defending champions lost their first game by a one-goal to zero against Mexico and bounced back to beat Sweden by 2-1 through a sublime free kick from Toni Kross. Germany leaves Russia with only 3 points and last in the group.
Before Germany, Spain the 2010 World Cup champions suffered the same fate when they got knocked out of the group stage. They were in the same group as the Netherlands, Australia and Chile.
In the first game against the Netherlands, they scored the first goal to announce their presence at the World Cup but their opponent at the 2010 finals came back from the goal down to win by 5-1.
They went on to lose to Chile and beat Australia to exit the group with 3 points. Spain went to the tournament as the first country to win the Euros back to back and also the World Cup.
Before the Spanish got their humiliation, the 2006 World Cup winners, Italy was humiliated at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
Everyone thought the Azzurris of Italy were going to top group F which had Paraguay, New Zealand and Slovakia.
Surprisingly, the defending champions were last in the group with 2 points after drawing with Paraguay, New Zealand and losing 3-1 to Slovakia.
This curse could not strike Brazil when they came to Germany in 2006. They were eliminated in the quarterfinals after losing to France by one goal.
In 2006, the assembled a team which had two Balon d’Or winners in Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, in form Kaka would also go on to also win the same award, Robinho, Adriano, Cafu, Emmerson, Dida and a host of other great players save them from the World Cup curse.
The French team after winning the World Cup in 1998 and Euros in 2000, lost their first match in Korea-Japan by a single goal against Senegal. They went on to draw with Uruguay in a goalless draw.
In their last game against Denmark, even the presence of Zinedine Zidane returning to the team could not save them as they lost to the Danes by 2-0.
History is set to repeat it, then the winner of the 2018 World Cup will possibly not make it out of the group stage in Qatar 2022.
