Talk:Cinderella (sports)

Why are the 2013 Seahawks listed as a Cinderella team?

1991 24 Hours of Le Mans
How many sources do I need as a proof, for basically a car who was on its last competitive year of racing going on an all or nothing mission to becoming the unexpected winner of the most prestigious racing event in the world. ...and will five sources be enough evidence? Donnie Park (talk) 16:30, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Donnie Park none of the provided examples actually describe it as a Cinderella story. While it could be inferred from the references you cite - to do so would constitute original research and is your own analysis or which as per policy is not something that should be on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information and a list such as this, by it's very nature, will never be complete. The list therefore attempts to only show Examples and not a complete list of every team, event, person etc... that could be considered a Cinderella Story. Rehnn83 Talk 09:32, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Gibberish
This is the current wording of the F1/Brawn GP entry:

Brawn GP – prior to the 2009 Formula One season, the team, who in previous season was Honda Racing F1, a fully factory supported team with lacklustre results despite a $300 million budget and staff of 700, before the team pulled out.[42] A few weeks before the season was about to start, the team went into a management buyout by Ross Brawn and chief executive Nick Fry[43] and subsequent rebranded as Brawn GP.[44] The team began its season with Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello scoring a 1–2 victory respectively[45] from pole,[46] then winning its following 5 of its 6 races (also by Button)[47][48][49][50][51][52][53] before its well funded (and factory supported) oppositions began to catch-up with Barichello catching up in the points.[54][55][56][57][58] By the end of the season, they managed to score an extra two victory by Barrichello was enough for the team to take the constructor's championship and put himself in contention for the driver's championship and Button managing to take the driver's title[59] in a season that began without certainty of winning, losses of 270 jobs following its first Grand Prix to survive[60] and managing with only three cars as opposed to eight on better funded teams.[61]

It's gibberish! I can't even begin to decipher it enough to correct the glaring problems of comprehension, spelling, grammar etc. Aerach (talk) 22:22, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Greece Euro 2014
This has to be included. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.189.181.18 (talk) 05:21, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Do You mean Euro 2004? Rehnn83 Talk 14:02, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

1969 Boston Celtics
This is a team that had won 9 of the past 10 titles and 10 of the past 12. They didn't have their best season in '69, but there has virtually never in the history of sports been a team that was as dominant as the 1960s Celtics. By the definition given in this very article, Cinderella stories are "situations in which competitors achieve far greater success than would reasonably have been expected". Rarely has there ever been a team for whom success was more expected than for the '69 Celtics. Wowwhostolemyusername (talk) 08:07, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Leicester City F.C.
It's very close to happening, and in my opinion, that should qualify here. Someone who follows English football more closely may improve the text below, but I came up with that for a start.

In 2014-15, Leicester City F.C. had sat on the last place for majority of the season. Following four-match winning streak in April and subsequent five matches in which the club won three, the team ended in 14th, staying in the Premier League for the next season.

Despite the late season heroics, the manager Nigel Pearson was sacked in the summer and replaced by Claudio Ranieri. The team was widely predicted to be relegated by the experts, including nine of 11 Guardian football writers.

Leicester City came up with good start, winning first two matches and staying undefeated for first six. The team regained the top position in December, lost it temporarily during the rough patch around new year, but after beating Stoke City F.C. on January 23 and Arsenal F.C. losing to Chelsea F.C. on the same day, Leicester F.C was able to grab the lead again and not losing it anymore during the season. The team would eventually clinch the championship on... BleuDXXXIV (talk) 08:32, 27 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree that Leicester City are looking like a potential Cinderella Story. We'd need to find independent sources describing their (soon to be) title success as a Cinderella story, but at this stage it's looking reasonable to include them as an example. Rehnn83 Talk 10:25, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I was going to propose this last week as well, as with sources, there should be plenty now. Donnie Park (talk) 17:30, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Nashville Predators?
Is it too soon to add the Nashville Predators to the list? They have made it to the Stanley Cup Finals, but the series has not started yet --danikayser84 ★  01:30, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I think it's too early yet. Remember the subjective nature of this list means that they're only examples and can never be exhaustive. There's already examples listed of NHL teams, in order to add Nashville Predators to the list, there'd have to be some justification to them replacing another team. Exactly how anyone one quantifies that one team is more notable than another is really difficult (if not impossible) to say Rehnn83 Talk 09:16, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
 * A further point to consider is Wikipedia's article of Recentism Rehnn83 Talk 09:53, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * The Predators qualified for the 2017 playoffs as the eighth seed in the Western Conference (and the sixteenth seed overall) by finishing fourth in the Central Division with 94 points. They upset the Chicago Blackhawks by sweeping them in 4 games in the first round. In the next to rounds, they defeated the St. Louis Blues and the Anaheim Ducks in six games to win their first conference championship. In 2017 Stanley Cup Finals, they were defeated by the Pittsburgh Penguins in six games; the Penguins became the first team to win consecutive Stanley Cup championships in 19 years. J4lambert (talk) 00:20, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Re-vamping article
I'm proposing significantly rewriting this article and in effect cutting this list. This very nature of this list means that it's subjective and no list can ever be exhaustive. I'm proposing limiting the examples to 2 or 3 teams/individuals. Rehnn83 Talk 15:22, 21 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Currently there definitely are way too many very recent examples that are more debatable than prominent, if Canada winning an ice hockey title is a fairy-tale run then anything is. But that makes the whole article superfluous. -78.27.119.21 (talk) 07:06, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

External links modified
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Are the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers really a Cinderella?
A brief, recent entry on this article includes the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers as a Cinderella.

Yes, they became the first team in NBA Finals history to overcome both 2-0 and 3-1 deficits. They also beat the defending champion Golden State Warriors with the greatest ever regular season of 73-9 and the first ever unanimous MVP.

However, the 2016 Cavaliers did not emerge out of nowhere at the beginning of the 2015-16 season to win it all. They reached the Finals that previous year and were projected by ESPN to at least win 56 games and the top seed in the Eastern Conference. In the opening weeks of the 2015-16 season, projections by FiveThirtyEight gave the Cavaliers the greatest chance to win the championship. At the beginning of the postseason, they also projected the Cavaliers would have the greatest chance to reach the Finals from the East.

Most sports teams on the list, considered to be Cinderella stories, were not expected to be contenders at the beginning of their seasons. So, I’ll remove the Cavaliers entry, until a case could be made that they were truly a Cinderella story. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.176.18.15 (talk) 01:47, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Eddie Irvine during the 1999 Formula One season?
Could Eddie Irvine be considered to be a Cinderella that didn't win the championship? From 1996-1998 he was the clear number two driver to Michael Schumacher, unable to even win races while Schumacher was fighting for championships. It wasn't until 1999 that Irvine himself was able to win a race, and then during the season he still got team orders to let Schumacher past, until the British Grand Prix, where Schumacher was injured, leaving Irvine in charge of the driver's championship fight. It was at least unexpected that Irvine would be fighting for the Formula One World Championship after being the number two driver for so long. I think it would be worth mentioning on the page.

Non-NCAA basketball usage
Tbis is a well written and documented article, but I have rarely heard the term "Cinderella" in a sports context outside of the NCAA Men's College Basketball tournament. I do not think that the term should not be used for other sports and teams, but more emphasis could be given to the college basketball aspect. Am I wrong? 47.137.185.87 (talk) 00:11, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Spam
The article, instead of informing about the term's concept, is turning into a spam of cinderella stories that nobody cares. Should those "stories" be split into a separate "list of cinderella stories"? Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 17:58, 13 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I agree. That it has both the Steelers and Seahawks as "Cinderella" teams for their matchup in Super Bowl XL makes their addition here extremely questionable. The omission of Gonzaga Men's Basketball in 1999, which was a team widely regarded as a "Cinderella" at the time in sports media and since, is notable. By my inexpert sporting opinion this appears to be a list of notable teams or games made by a dedicated but inaccurate fanbase and needs significant pruning. If nothing else than the corrections to the sports lore of Washington State. 174.31.88.161 (talk) 11:50, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

2021–22 New York Rangers season
Should the 2021–22 New York Rangers be included in this page under "Cinderella teams that did not win the championship"? The team entered the season expecting to be a playoff contender but not a cup contender. They weren't even expected to make the Eastern Conference Finals. They were led by Igor Shesterkin and were two years ago moving on from Henrik Lundqvist. They made the playoffs for the first time since the 2017 season excluding the 2020 bubble. Before this season, the team was rebuilding, as shown when the team wrote a letter to the fans informing them about it. In the playoffs, they went further than people expected. They overcame a 3-1 series deficit to beat the Pittsburgh Penguins and then they would upset the Carolina Hurricanes in 7 games after losing the first three road games of the series. They would, however, go on to lose the series in 6 games to the Tampa Bay Lightning despite having a 2-0 series lead. If the 2021–22 Rangers are included, it is also worthy to mention the Kid Line. There are several articles that mentions the word "Cinderella" when describing this year's team. I'm not sure what to say and I would like someone to help me with what to say. --96.28.84.250 (talk) 06:02, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Cinderella (sports)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Cinderella (sports)'s orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "TFT": From 1980 Copa del Rey Final:  From 1974 European Cup Final:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 22:09, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Should performance of Morocco in FIFA 22 be considered here?
Defeating Portugal in QF is certainly some underdog performance! Srijan Suryansh (talk) 04:01, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Many dubious examples for NFL teams
There are many examples of Cinderella runs given for the NFL which I don't think truly qualify. While a lot of these teams weren't favorites to win the Super Bowl, either entering the season, or entering the Playoffs, a bunch of teams are listed which were 2 seeds and had first round byes. I don't think most people would consider a lot of these teams to have gone on Cinderella runs, especially given the term is used far less frequently to refer to the NFL than other sports, and the fact that generally speaking with the relative parity within the league (although a more recent phenomenon) and no more than 43.75% of teams making the playoffs in any non-strike shortened season, the cases of teams who actually went on a run improbable enough to be considered Cinderella teams are particularly few and far between as the vast majority of teams which have ever made the playoffs tend to be good teams. Given the high percentage of Super Bowl appearances taken up by top 2 seeds (who both had a bye for 30 years) it can make sense to apply the label to a significant number of teams which had to play in the wild card round, and there is certainly room for debate, but I don't think most NFL fans would agree with the list compiled here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.218.126.202 (talk) 05:25, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Page content
There is a discussion regarding this page's content at —Bagumba (talk) 09:15, 27 March 2023 (UTC)