Six World Cup friendly results that proved irrelevant after Spain held by Iraq | OneFootball

Reigning European champions Spain are heading into the World Cup on the back of a draw with Iraq, the 56th-ranked side in the world. Maybe they’re not all they’re made up to be?

And France. Look at them, losing to Ivory Coast. That can’t be good.

Or we could just be sensible and not read too much into it. Here are some other pre-World Cup friendly results from years gone by that proved irrelevant when the tournament came around.

France 1-1 USA (2018)

Boos rang out from the home crowd in Lyon at half time of France’s 1-1 draw with USA on the eve of the 2018 World Cup.

It took until the 78th minute for Kylian Mbappe to score an equaliser after Julian Green’s opener just before the interval.

In fairness, France had 19 shots – 17 more than their opponents – but would have expected to score from many more of them against a youthful American side.

The draw sparked some doubts about France’s chances of going far in Russia. Ultimately, they went all the way and won it.

Poland 4-0 Lithuania (2018)

Tipped by many to be dark horses at the 2018 World Cup, Poland geared themselves up with a 4-0 win over neighbouring Lithuania – a team you’d expect them to beat, we must admit – with Robert Lewandowski scoring a brace.

But Poland fell at the first hurdle in Russia, finishing bottom of their group after only winning their last game. Lewandowski didn’t score a single goal. Fraud.

Germany 2-2 Cameroon (2014)

Germany’s warm-ups for their 2014 World Cup campaign were uninspiring to say the least. A goalless draw with Poland was followed by a 2-2 stalemate against Cameroon.

“We were not good in our passing game and that got us into trouble repeatedly,” acknowledged Joachim Low. “We had some chances but we lack the final finish.

“We need to find that efficiency we have been missing for some time. We currently take too many chances to score.”

They soon put that right. Their last pre-World Cup friendly was a 6-1 win over Armenia to set them back on the right track.

And, of course, there was the famous 7-1 win over hosts Brazil in the World Cup semi-final before they beat Argentina to get their hands on the trophy.

Republic of Ireland 1-5 Portugal (2014)

With Cristiano Ronaldo emerging from a 51-goal season with Real Madrid, Portugal went into the 2014 World Cup fresh from a 5-1 friendly win over the Republic of Ireland.

They would not score five goals all tournament, though. They began with a 4-0 defeat to Germany before a 2-2 draw with the USA and a 2-1 win over Ghana, in which Ronaldo finally scored.

It wasn’t enough, as Portugal finished third thanks to having a worse goal difference than the USA. Back home they went.

England 6-0 Jamaica (2006)

The so-called Golden Generation went into the 2006 World Cup on a high note after thrashing Jamaica 6-0 in their final warm-up match.

Sure, the opponents weren’t at the level England would have to beat if they wanted to go all the way in Germany, but it certainly didn’t harm their mood heading there.

With a Peter Crouch hat trick and Frank Lampard and Michael Owen getting on the scoresheet too, England swept Jamaica aside.

A week later, they beat Paraguay 1-0 in an incredibly tedious World Cup group stage opener. England stunk out the finals until their quarter-final elimination.

Italy 0-0 Ukraine (2006)

Meanwhile, at the same stage of the 2006 competition, Italy beat Ukraine 3-0. They would end up going all the way and winning the World Cup.

Naturally, it rendered moot the goalless draw between Italy and Ukraine just a few weeks earlier.

Italy were ‘lacking in attack’ in their final friendly before the World Cup, according to Gazzetta Dello Sport. Seven games and 12 goals later, they were world champions.