Across the board on social media people were hoping for Croatia to win the world cup. There were sections of French fans but they were few in number as compared to the number of Croatian fans. The reason for following and supporting Croatia was because Croatia was the underdog. Everyone has this tendency to like teams that are less likely to win. This poses the question. Why does everyone like to go through the mental trauma of cheering for teams that most likely lose? All we have ever wanted is to win. Come what may, we want to succeed and when our favorite team wins or loses we feel like we won or lost.
There is more than one reason that came out of the research I did on this topic.
The first reason is that we think that the people who win all the time are more talented and gifted, due to this reason we think that the weaker team will work harder and this is a trait everyone likes to relate themselves too.
The second reason is that we start to hate teams that win over and over, the most successful teams who win a lot of trophies and competitions would generally have a lot of resentment to them, just because we don't like them. After all there is no better feeling than seeing a team that has spent millions lose and go down.
The third and the biggest reason for supporting an underdog is we want the world to be just. Most of the people in this world work at the fringes of their organizations and feel like they should have more than what they have right now. Thus, the fantasy of following an underdog becomes a no-brainer. We want to see the people who no one expects making it to the top.
If you we see ourselves as the underdog and have the effort and the will to reach the top, the universe will make sure that we reach our potential and achieve what we want to achieve. We might not win, just like Croatia didn't, but we win the respect and the love from our peers and the memories we create are boundless.