Who Wants to Be a Millionaire contestant loses thousands on England football question

A contestant on the popular ITV quiz Who Wants to Be a Millionaire was left kicking himself after losing thousands on an England football question.

Difficult sports trivia is a regular feature of the show and, in an episode from January 2024, host Jeremy Clarkson asked contestant Neil Montero to name which team the Three Lions had beaten at a FIFA World Cup.

Brazil, Argentina, Italy and Spain were the options listed, and he unfortunately selected the wrong one, as his hopes of becoming only the second player since 2020 to win the £1,000,000 top prize were ended.

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Who Wants to Be a Millionaire contestant loses thousands on England football question

Supporters of the Three Lions are aware that Argentina is the correct answer, having beaten them on three previous occasions, including a 1-0 quarter-final victory en route to winning their first and only World Cup in 1966.

But when Clarkson listed off the four options, Montero pondered selecting Spain, saying: "Spain looks the most likely, because Spain have been good quite recently, but they haven't always been good at football.

"So from a purely reasoned point of view, Brazil, Italy, and Argentina have always been pretty good at football; Spain haven't always been quite good. Spain seems like the one I would lean to, but I've been through it, and I'm no more confident that I know this answer."

He then decided to use the "Ask The Audience" lifeline and, when he needed them to point him in the right direction by selecting Argentina, only 17% picked the 2022 world champions, whereas over half (52%) picked Spain.

Montero had reached the £32,000 mark safely and was playing for £64,000. Sadly, because the audience gave him the wrong advice and he picked Spain as his final answer, he dropped back down to the £8,000 milestone and a loss of £24,000.

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Another Who Wants to Be a Millionaire contestant lost huge sum on World Cup question

Montero was still happy to walk away with £8,000, but he isn't the only contestant to lose thousands on a World Cup-related question.

On Germany's edition of the show, Marc Offenbacher was doing well and correctly answered 12 of the 15 questions.

With two out of four lifelines remaining, he was then asked, "What is the most common final score in men’s FIFA World Cup finals? 1–0? 2–1? 3–1? Or 4–2?”.

Unfortunately, Offenbacher confessed that he doesn't watch football or any sports, making him the wrong man to answer this question.

Lady luck wasn't on his side, either, as after using the 50:50 lifeline - which narrowed it down to 4-2 and 2-1 - he selected the latter after an audience member failed to assist by directing him towards the right answer.

Indeed, 4-2 is the most common result in World Cup finals, and it happened on four occasions, including England's historic 1966 triumph and France's victory over Croatia in Russia in 2018.

Offenbacher's question was for £108,000, but because he didn't have a safety net, he ended up with just €500 (£435) - a significantly smaller sum of money.