I
overheard a conversation between coworkers and the phrase "defense wins world cups" was spoken. I decided to do some investigation.
I
found this cool site:
Average
goals per game overall: 2.85
Average
goals in the years that they won:
Brazil::
(1958, 2.67), (1962, 2.33), (1970, 3.17), (1994, 1.57), (2002, 2.57)
Italy:
(1934, 2.4), (1938, 2.75), (1982, 1.71), (2006, 1.71)
Germany:
(1954, 4.17), (1974, 1.86), (1990, 2.14)
Argentina:
(1978, 2.14), (1986, 2)
Uruguay:
(1930, 3.75), (1950, 3.75)
France:
(1998, 2.14)
Spain:
(2010, 1.14)
England:
(1966, 1.83)
Average
championship goals: 2.41
It
seems that overall the champions do score less goals than the average but that
data might be skewed because the champions spend more time in the knockout
stages vs the group stage where goals in general are fewer. The defensive
mindedness of teams overall goes up and therefore goals scored goes down.
If you’re opponent turtles, you will not score as many goals but that does not
mean your offense isn’t the most potent.
If
you filter to just the group stage:
Brazil::
(1958, 1.67), (1962, 1.33), (1970, 2.67), (1994, 2), (2002, 3.67)
Italy:
(1934, 7), (1938, 2), (1982, 1.4), (2006, 1.67)
Germany:
(1954, 3.5), (1974, 1.83), (1990, 3.33)
Argentina:
(1978, 2), (1986, 2)
Uruguay:
(1930, 2.5), (1950, 4.33)
France:
(1998, 3)
Spain:
(2010, 1.33)
England:
(1966, 1.33)
Average
goals by champions in their group stage: 2.56
Overall
goals: 2.85, overall group goals: 2.77
Yes,
it appears that the championship teams score more goals in the group stage than
thereafter (turtling down is real). However, it does not appear that even
in the group stage they are above average. There are several variables
which I would analyze before drawing a conclusion. The main is filtering
by year. At some point, the modern era of futbol came and the strength of
opponents and the tournament no longer allowed things like Italy’s 7 goal
average in the group stage of 1934. Also, because a team plays more
defensively, doesn’t mean that their offense isn’t better than the other guys
and if you have a potent offense, it reflects in possession time, allowing the
other team less time to attack. Therefore a good offense would be
correlated to the other team scoring less goals and therefore reflect in this
data as better defense. I would suspect that overall goal scoring has
gone down (vs time) but I would be surprised if the winners of world cups
didn’t (on average) have better than average offense of the world cup teams of
that year.
Ideally,
FIFA would have an offensive and defensive ranking of teams that one could
correlate to world cup wons. Here’s some data, at least from the NFL:
At
least, in the NFL, offense wins championships.
Those
old sayings need to be proved and contextualized, like “drive
for show and putt for dough”. Turns out driving distance is the best
indication of monetary winnings and winning tournaments in golf (more than
putting or accuracy). You saw what happened to Mexico on Sunday.
Defense isn’t always the answer, only sometimes, just like offense.
Strategy needs to be evaluated contextually and continually.
I
wish FIFA had the officiating, reviews and data tracking that the NFL
does. At minimum, there is always one important fact: to win, you need to
score more goals than the other team.
In the end, I think any strategy or characteristic of what constitutes a win or a loss needs to be examined critically before generalized and should also be used contextually because how and when you use a strategy is as or more important as its execution itself.
In the end, I think any strategy or characteristic of what constitutes a win or a loss needs to be examined critically before generalized and should also be used contextually because how and when you use a strategy is as or more important as its execution itself.
