Slovenia

Three draws, no wins, and Slovenia still walked out of the group at Euro 2024. Level with England, level with Denmark, level with Serbia — the kind of record that usually sends a side home — yet the team finished among the best third-placed sides and reached a round of 16 no Slovenian squad had seen before. Portugal ended it there, 0–0 after ninety minutes, on penalties.

The federation itself is barely older than the players who delivered that run: it joined FIFA in 1992, a year after Slovenia broke from Yugoslavia, and its first recognised match brought a 1–1 draw away to Estonia. There had been an earlier game, in 1921 against France, lost 0–5 in Ljubljana, but it belongs to a country that no longer existed by the time the federation was admitted, so it carries no official weight.

Zlatko Zahovič scored more of Slovenia's goals than anyone else, 35 in 80 appearances between 1992 and 2004, and his fallout with coach Srečko Katanec after the 2002 World Cup ended Katanec's spell in charge just as the team was finding its feet on the world stage. That tournament brought only defeats, to Spain, South Africa and Paraguay. The wait for a first World Cup win lasted until 2010, when Matjaž Kek's side beat Algeria 1–0.

No nickname has ever stuck to the side — it was the one team at the 2010 World Cup without one — though the golden run of players born between 1998 and 2002 earned its own label, Zlata generacija. Matches against Croatia, sharpened by the shared border and the Yugoslav past, are still called the Sousedski derbi. Slovenia plays its home fixtures at the Stožice Stadium in Ljubljana, well below the reach the Euro 2024 run suggested the team now has.