As I type this, Algeria and Slovenia are convincing me I shouldn’t have woken up at 6am to watch them both hamfistedly try to score a goal. It has just finished 1-0 to Slovenia and that comes after the first two days of the World Cup produced a pitiful 1.4 goals per game, the lowest total for that period of games since 1986. We are now at 1.33.
So where are all the goals, despite a couple of terrible goalkeeping blunders already?
It’s very, very early to be drawing the conclusion that we could be headed for a historically low-scoring tournament, though we do have a sample of almost 10% of the games already.
But in the broader sweep of World Cup history, it would be no surprise if the number of goals declined again in this World Cup, as the following list of goals average per World Cup illustrates:
Uruguay, 1930: 3.9 goals per match
Italy, 1934: 4.1
France, 1938: 4.7
Brazil, 1950: 4.0
Switzerland, 1954: 5.4
Sweden, 1958: 3.8
Chile, 1962: 2.8
England, 1966: 2.8
Mexico, 1970: 3.0
Germany, 1974: 2.6
Argentina, 1978: 2.8
Spain, 1982: 2.8
Mexico, 1986: 2.5
Italy, 1990: 2.2
USA, 1994: 2.7
France, 1998: 2.7
Korea/Japan 2002: 2.5
Germany, 2006: 2.3
If we divided the 18 World Cups into three eras of six tournaments each, we’d have:
The first era (1930-1958): 4.3 goals
The second era (1962-1982): 2.8
The third era (1986-2006): 2.5
The first era saw teams travelling long distances in an uncomfortable manner, often extremely ill-prepared for the games, with just a day or two of training together. The variation in the quality of teams was extraordinary, leading to some seriously lopsided games that were probably less fun to watch than a 0-0 draw from a standpoint of serious sporting competition: Italy shellacking the United States 7-1 in 1934, Hungary beating the Dutch East Indies 6-0 in 1938, Brazil beating Sweden 7-1 in 1950, Hungary crushing Korea 9-0 in 1954, and so on. Indeed, in that ridiculous 1954 tournament, the six matches in Group 1 saw the following results: 4-1, 9-0, 8-3, 7-0, 7-2. I guess if you like your football as a 101 Best Goals Compilation, this was the tournament for you.
In the second era from 1962-1982, football as a modern game settled into something that now seems more like “normal”. Creative genius from a Pele or Cruyff could unlock a defense, but teams were now better organised, players more familiar with each other from international club play. Teams also became more cynical, with deliberate fouls injuring key players, and tighter tactics. All this led to a decline in the number of goals, but games were also more even, yet often still high-scoring. The goals scored in the actual World Cup final itself across these eras are interesting in this regard. In the second period, the results were: 3-1, 4-2, 4-1, 2-1, 3-1, 3-1. Every team in the final scored at least one goal.
The first era (1930-1958): 5 goals
The second era (1962-1982): 3.7
The third era (1986-2006): 2.8
In the third era, as the goals per game across all the games in the tournament and in the six finals themselves show, the sport became much lower-scoring and much more attritional.The results in the final games were 3-2, 1-0, 0-0, 3-0, 2-0, 1-1: so on four occasions, at least one of the two finalists did not score a goal.
Dunga, from 1994 to the present day as a player and a coach, epitomises this change, as does Brazil’s style of play, which appears to be increasingly inverse to the Nike hype surrounding them. Players are bigger, stronger, faster and fitter; the pitch and the goal have essentially shrunk, with goalkeepers taller and having greater reach (Robert Green aside).
FIFA has made efforts to reverse the drastic decline in goals scored, with some limited success: the nadir of Italia ’90 with just 2.2 goals per game was turned around to go back up to 2.7 at USA ’94, thanks to the new restrictions on the backpass put into place and, arguably, a greater clampdown on cynical fouls by referees.
But by Germany 2006, we were back at just 2.3 goals per game. Should this World Cup see the number decline below the low of 1990, FIFA and the football world at large will surely have to give serious consideration on how to stop the game becoming ever more dull and turgid on its biggest stage.
Interesting stuff. Currently watching the Serbia-Ghana game which has also seen little goalmouth incident after 25 mins. It would be hard to say that it’s a trend in modern football in general. I don’t have the statistics to hand but there have been quite a few bizarre, high-scoring games in the last couple of seasons of the Premier League.
And I’d like to raise the issue of the European Championships (which generally has higher quality, more even matches than the World Cup). After a pretty turgid Euro 96 (the first after the expansion to 16 teams, I think the 2000, 2004 and 2008 tournaments have been pretty good on the whole (with the dishonourable exception of Greece) and have delivered enough goals for it not to be a concern.
Euro 96 – 2.06
Euro 00 – 2.78
Euro 04 – 2.48
Euro 08 – 2.48
It does seem quite unexpected that the Euros are producing more GPG than the World Cup. You’d expect that the addition of sides like Brazil, Argentina and the African sides would produced more attacking football and weaker sides like New Zealand, Honduras and North Korea, sides that aren’t even remotely near European Championship standards, would see some one-sided scorelines.
35 mins gone in this one and still not to get excited about…here’s hoping…
Tim — that’s interesting about the Euros, though that 2.48 average for the past two tournaments isn’t too far out f line with the last two World Cups, at 2.7 and 2.3.
Half-time of Serbia-Ghana isn’t doing much to encourage me that South Africa isn’t going to be down from Germany 2006. If I had to guess, we’ll end up with a 2.1 average for this World Cup, a record low.
I’d also like to see some stats for the major European leagues over the past decade or two — I’ll try and put it together soon to see where goal scoring is trending as a whole.
Heck, maybe it’s just a combination of the vuvuzelas and the jabulani!
Tim, I do so wish I could read/hear more about those two things!
Hi,
Just thought the same thing after watching today’s games. It’s a real shame. I remembered so many world cups where offensive teams usually won (World Cup in 1978 was one, the World Cup in the US was another one although the semi-finals and the final itself pulled down the average).
This trend has really been escalating and I’m not surprised that the two world cups held in 2002 and 2006 hit “all time lows”.
FIFA really needs to do something about this. There are numerous was to introduce new rules to the game that would make it worthwile for attacking teams. What’s the problem with making the goals bigger?? In the past 130 years, the goals have kept the same width and hight, while man kind must have grown xxx centimeters and inches… Goalies these days are typically 2 meters tall. Why not make the goals 50 cm wider and higher? A very simple solution…
Thanks!
Fred
Fredrik — the purists would be up in arms, but there’s a lot of common sense (based on the changing sizes of human beings since the nineteenth century) to enlarging the goal and/or the field. There have been similar calls in basketball, though that’s a rather different can of worms.
The goal is too small. They need a bigger goal. http://greenerblog.blogspot.fr/2010/06/world-cup-hysteria-hits-mabinogogiblog.html
The Observer did a big thing about a year ago (maybe more?) about goals per game in the major European leagues, but my googling skills are not quite good enough to find it at the mo…
Mind you the Germans have just scored their fourth so maybe we don’t need to worry too much yet!
Damn Germans trying to prove me wrong, I’m taking it personally….
Oh here’s the 09/10 averages for top five European leagues:
http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11662_6162871,00.html
less than 3 across the board
There was a similar issue in baseball where the pitchers were getting better and better and the batting averages kept getting lower. Finally, in 1969 I think, they lowered the pitcher’s mound. Of course, this only seems to work one way; in the 1990s when it seemed like batting records were being broken everywhere, it wasn’t put back.
As an alternative to making the pitch bigger, they should consider taking one player off each team.
The players today are so much more faster, and the pitches so much better, that it really is like the field has shrunk.
Football is played double the speed that it was in the 30’s or 40’s.
Making the game less crowded will benefit the skillful players and make the game much more attractive.
Also, enlarging the larger (extra 50 cm height and at least 1 meter wide) would encourage shooting from long range. that will open up the game and make room for penetrating players. It’s like they did in Basketball with the addition of the 3 point range which was a huge success.
To bad that conservatism and fear inhibit improvement of the game.
Very interesting suggestion, Galiliyo. Taking a player off makes just as much sense. If only the NASL were still around to try all this….
Hi guys,
The average number of goals / game in this World Cup is 1,57 (after the Spanish game when 11 strikers tried to score against 11 defenders. A magnificent example of a totally destructive team: Switzerland)…
What I would like to know is the following:
*When* did FIFA introduced extra time? Surely, one should not count those extra 30 minutes that have been played in the play-offs?
That would be like comparing apples with pears…!
Anyone knows?
Best,
Fred
Fredrik – the 1934 World Cup final went to extra-time, so the rule was introduced by the second World Cup – I’m not sure if the rule existed in 1930, but no knockout games were tied after 90 minutes in any case.
Thanks Tom, yes…
Let me clarify my point…
This is the “old way” it used to “work” in the World Cups:
The top two teams in each group would advance to the second round, where they would be split into two groups of four. The winners of each group would play each other in the final, and the second place finishers in the third place match.
However, thesedays, there is a “knock out stage” (with extra time) **directly after the first group stage**… This means that a lot of games go to extra time *already after the first group stage* (add another 30 minutes of football and you will get more goals in the same game!).
So: there is probably more extra time (another 30 minutes) in the “Modern World Cups” – which increases the Goal Average in comparison to the old days…
See my point? We should compare 90 minutes vs. 90 minutes in order to get the right stats!
All the best from Germany!
Fred (Swedish)
Fredrik: I agree with the general point, but it’s not always been that way either. Compare 1954 to 2010: with eight groups of four teams in 2010, for example, there will be 48 guaranteed group games, 75% of the total. In the 1954 World Cup, there were 16 group games (plus two playoff games) and 8 knockout games. So again, 75% of the total. Some World Cups in old times also went straight to a knockout stage. Yet 1954 saw the highest goals per game average of all tournaments, at 5.4!
So the format’s varied over time, sometimes there were those second group stages, sometimes there weren’t. In general, then, I do think you bring up an important point what we would need ideally would be a goals-per-minute total. That’s a lot of adding up and dividing to do, though!
Plus, I’d add the format has remained the same since 1998, yet the number of goals will have gone down substantially in three successive World Cups, if 2010 continues its trend.
Agreed!
Goals per minute is what it should really be!!
😉
Fred
Fred, get your calculator out! I need some help…. 😉
I think its a combination of the jabuani ball and the very slick pitches making play very difficult and thus harder to create clear cut chances. The high altitudes and vuvuzelas can’t help either.
I actually believe the new WC-ball carries some of the blame for the decline in goals. The ball seems lively and way too light. Very often attackers lose the ball in the deciding moment because it’s too hard to control. It bounces off the field when passed across the pitch and shots from a far go over the goal. Take another look at the Spain- Switzerland game:
https://myspace.com/
Villa’s shot at 3.06 – 9/10 times he would put that away with a regular ball.
check also Torres’ shot at 3.21 – I have never seen him make a chip as aweful as this – look at it in slow, it seems like the ball just takes off on its own. Xabi Alonso’s shot at 3.41 is unbelievable, but again look at how the ball bounces during the pass to him.
I find it funny that the ball was made for strikers, made to make goals nicer, made to give tecnically strong players an advantage, and so far we see frustrated super stars and lower seated countries stealing headlines.
Tom: uyuff!! That’s a rather huge task, but certainly something that the media should pick-up… Thinking of starting a Facebook Group: “FIFA: make the game more attractive” (or something)…!
Anders: I absolutely agree with you. However, that does not explain the decline (in goals scored per game) during the past two decades… But again: the ball is messing things up. Besides, as I understand, many games are played on high altitude. The combination is, maybe, not the best?
Best regards from Barcelona (no: I am a Real Madrid fan – since I was a small kid! And no: I don’t like the new era of “Galácticos”!!)!
Just a note on World Cup tournament formats: no format has been used more than four times, and here’s the rundown:
1930: Four groups of 4 (though 3 teams declined, so it ended up being one of 4 and three of 3), group winners advancing to knockout semifinals/final (including the United States!)
1934-38: Sixteen-team direct knockout, draws after 120 minutes replayed (only 15 teams in 1938 as Austria qualified, but was swallowed up by Nazi Germany).
1950: Four groups of four, group winners advancing to final group stage (the “final” that year was only possible as such because of Uruguay and Brazil’s earlier results; also, two groups were short: Sweden’s and Uruguay’s, due to withdrawals; Uruguay only had to play one game to make the final round robin and duly thrashed Bolivia 8-0.)
1954: Four groups of four, but with two seeds in each group that did not play each other (the two non-seeded didn’t play each other, either), but a scheduled group play-off as necessary; the two best teams advanced to three-round knockout stage.
1958-70: The “classic” format: four groups of four, top two going to knockout quarterfinals etc.
1974-78: Four groups of four, top two going to second group stage, second stage winners going to final and runner-up going to third-place match.
1982: Six groups of four, top two in each going to second group stage with four groups of three, winners of which advanced to knockout semifinals/final.
1986-94: Six groups of four, top two in each plus four best third-place teams advancing to 16-team single-elimination knockout stage.
1998-2010: “New classic” format: eight groups of four, top two in each advancing to 16-team knockout stage.
This last has been used four times…guess it’s time to change again! ^_^