the.com/wild card
The slot that lets nobodies storm the gates and occasionally burn the whole tournament down.
means A person or thing whose behavior or outcome can't be predicted, or an extra entry granted to someone who didn't qualify through the usual route.
from From the actual playing card — a card declared 'wild' in a game, free to stand in for any value its holder needs. That card-table sense, alive by the early 20th century in American English, spread outward: by mid-century it was leaping into sports (the unseeded entrant slipped into the bracket), then into computing (the 'wildcard character,' the * that matches anything), and into plain speech for any unpredictable element. 'Wild' here carries its old Germanic weight — untamed, ungoverned, out of the deck's lawful order.
- sports origin
- Lets non-qualifiers crash the postseason party
- computing
- The asterisk that means everything at once
- super bowl glory
- Wild card teams have won the whole thing
- poker roots
- Designated cards that can become any value
- the idiom
- Unpredictable element nobody can plan around
leicester city 2015-16 — won premier league at 5000-1 odds, first season outside top flight in 33 years
greece euro 2004 — 150-1 outsiders won european championship, defeated hosts portugal in final