Researcher William Peracchio plans to follow the 2026 FIFA World Cup closely with an eye on rare final scores, even though he is not a dedicated soccer fan. Peracchio works at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is pursuing degrees at both Harvard and Stamford, and he has created a World Cup Scorigami chart he calls World Cupigami.
The term Scorigami refers to a scoreline that has never occurred before. Sportswriter Jon Bois coined the word in 2014 to describe unique final scores in the NFL, noting there remained many unattained combinations — for example, 15-8 or 25-18 had not happened in NFL history.
The Scorigami idea has been applied beyond American football, and Peracchio said his World Cup project is “a fun little project.” The tournament’s expansion to 48 teams has increased the likelihood of either lopsided results or unusually high-scoring matches that could produce a Scorigami.
There was a near miss early in the tournament when Germany beat debutants Curaçao 7-1. An 8-1 victory has never occurred at the World Cup, so when Germany forward Kai Havertz scored his side’s seventh in the 88th minute there was a brief chance of a historic scoreline, but a final eighth goal did not arrive.
Possible one-sided Scorigami scorelines still in play include 8-2, 10-0 and 9-1, though not all large margins would be unique; 8-3 has occurred (Hungary vs. Germany, 1954) and 10-1 happened in 1982 (Hungary vs. El Salvador). Alternatively, an end-to-end, high-scoring result could produce a first-time score — a 5-4 win or a 5-5 draw have never happened at the World Cup, while 6-5 (Brazil vs. Poland, 1938) and 7-5 (Austria vs. Switzerland, 1954) have.
Scorigamis are rare at the World Cup. A unique scoreline did not occur for 40 years until England’s 6-2 win over Iran in 2022; the prior instance was Hungary’s 10-1 win over El Salvador in 1982. The most common World Cup result remains 1-0, which has happened 183 times, followed by 2-1 (153 occurrences) and 2-0 (113 occurrences).
