The summer of the underdog: why outsiders are the most compelling sights in sport | Natalie Tan

Thanks to Arthur Fery, Maja Chwalinska and Cape Verde, we have been blessed with a glut of unexpected stories of late

“Where has he been?” Gary Neville said of Vozinha, the Cape Verde goalkeeper. “We should have met him before.” Should you have, really? Met him before? Surely that would have defeated the point. The appeal of the underdog, after all, is that a month ago you wouldn’t have been able to name them. They’re supposed to come out of absolutely nowhere and they have: what with Arthur Fery, Maja Chwalinska, and Cape Verde, we’ve been spoilt for choice these past two months.

Fery’s Wimbledon semi-final loss to Alexander Zverev brought a great underdog story to an end. The four teams left in the World Cup are also the four highest-ranked teams in the world. But the long shots will linger for a while. Ranked 114th, Fery is the lowest-rated player to make it into a grand slam semi-final since … well, since Chwalinska the Polish qualifier, also ranked 114th, made a similarly astonishing run at the French Open. Chwalinska took it a step further: she beat Diana Shnaider to secure a spot in the final, becoming only the second ever qualifier in the open era, man or woman, to do so.

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