The goalscoring situation has never again reached the heights of ’54. In fact as the number of teams competing in each Finals has grown from the ’54 figure of 16 the goals average per game has remained below 3. This does defy logic as the more teams there are in the Finals the more goals should be expected. Especially as the number of Finalists has increased, the newcomers have left a lot to be desired, where ability is concerned. Consequently more high scoring games should be expected. Unfortunately that is not the case. Do too many sides have the Greece attitude? The current formation of 32 teams has run for the last four Finals and the goalscoring abilities of teams seems to be pretty much in line with previous set-ups.
Perhaps a look at individual game scores in the last four Finals might be of some help.
The first round games over the four last Finals have goal totals as follows
0 – 0 16
1 – 0 21
0 – 1 18
1 – 1 25
2 – 0 16
0 – 2 12
2 – 1 15
1 – 2 10
2 – 2 13
3 – 0 5
0 – 3 6
3 – 1 7
1 – 3 5
3 – 2 4
2 – 3 2
3 – 3 1
There were 16 other scores, ranging from 2 – 5 to 8 – 0 .
Breaking these figures down, there were 144 matches that finished UNDER 3.5 goals (75%) with 48 games going OVER 3.5 goals.
The group stage is followed by the knock-out Round of 16.
0 – 0 3
1 – 0 6
0 – 1 2
1 – 1 5
2 – 0 2
0 – 2 1
2 – 1 4
1 – 2 0
2 – 2 1
3 – 0 2
0 – 3 1
3 – 1 1
1 – 3 1
4 – 1 2
1 – 4 1
It is quite evident that the group stage gets rid of most of the “make-weights”. Of these thirty-two matches, twenty-six, (81.25%) ended under 3.5 goals.
The quarter-finals were even more competitive. Only two of the sixteen matches going Over 3.5 goals.(Leaving 87.5% as UNDERS). These included 0 – 0 x4, 0 – 1, 1 – 1 and 2 – 1 each returned twice.
The semi-finals, third place and final were all fairly close affairs. A total of sixteen matches returning 4 games OVER 3.5 GOALS. The other scores included
0 – 0, 1 – 0, 0 – 1 and 1 – 1 returned twice each and four other scores of 0 – 2, 2 – 1, 1 – 2 and 3 – 0.
As far as researching goes these stats are just a drop in the ocean. However going even further back when there were fewer teams competing there is very little difference in goals scoring habits.
The present set-up is a little overladen with no-hopers but given his way Sepp Blatter has hinted at further increases could be on the way. God save us from this man.
