Prev: Proposal for a new World Cup format
Next: The top 10 popular team sports of all time
From: Raja, The Great on 16 Jul 2010 07:47
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_team_appearances_in_the_FIFA_World_Cup#Overall_team_record

27 nations have scored 25 goals in the World Cup so far. I did an
analysis of Goals Conceder Per Match (GCPM) vs Goals Scored Per Match
(GSPM) rounded to two decimal places and then ranked them.

The 27 nations who have scored 25 goals are Brazil, Germany, Italy,
Argentina, France, Spain, Hungary, England, Uruguay, Sweden,
Netherlands, Serbia, Russia, Mexico, Czech Rep, Belgium, Poland,
Austria, Portugal, Switzerland, Chile, United States, Paraguay,
Romania, South Korea, Denmark, Scotland in that order.

Top 10 all time STINGY DEFENSES in terms of Goals conceded per match
Team GCPM
 England 0.88
 Brazil 0.91
 Italy 0.93
 Portugal 0.96
 Netherlands 1.02
 Spain 1.05
 Argentina 1.14
 Germany  1.18
Russia 1.19
 France 1.26

Uruguay was ranked 13th most stingy (Poland and Serbia were 11th and
12th). Which means of the world cup winning nations, Uruguay have been
historically the worst defense, followed by France and Germany. The
best defense of the world cup winning nations have been England,
Brazil and Italy. Spain and Argentina are in the middle and have
neither crappy defense or great defense.

Top 10 all time PROLIFIC OFFENSES in terms of Goals scored per match
 Team GCPM
Hungary 2.72
 Brazil 2.16
 Germany  2.08
 France 1.78
 Argentina 1.76
Russia 1.73
 Portugal 1.7
 Denmark 1.69
 Netherlands 1.65
 Uruguay 1.62

Of the 8 world cup winning nations Brazil, Germany and France are the
top 3. Brazil and Germany are quite close but they are outshone by
Hungary who has played less than 1/3rd's of the matches these two have
played. Argentina and Uruguay are in the middle. The least scoring
world cup nations are England, Italy and Spain in that order. I
thought Spain was good at scoring, so somewhat shocking. English seem
to be the worst at scoring and best at not conceding.

So if we are to categorize the 8 world cup winning nations,
historically...

1. Brazil - great offense and great defense (best offense and second
best defense - best BALANCED team ever)
2. Germany - great offense and mediocre defense (second best offense
- best OFFENSIVE team ever)
3. France - great offense and mediocre defense (worse than Germany in
both cases)
4. Argentina - decent offense and decent defense (great or mediocre in
neither!)
5. Uruguay - decent offense and mediocre defense (worst defense of
the eight teams)
6. Spain - mediocre offense and decent defense (this world cup brought
their GSPM down, they were 1.79 before this)
7. Italy - mediocre offense and great defense (second best DEFENSIVE
team ever)
8. England - mediocre offense and great defense (second best DEFENSIVE
team ever)

So safe to say Brazil won 5 world cups because they are good at both
offense and defense, Italy won 4 world cups because they are good at
defense and Germany won 3 world cups because they are good at offense?
From: Raja, The Great on 16 Jul 2010 08:02
Some other stats from that analysis.

Top 5 offensive teams who never won the world cup.
Team GSPM
 Hungary 2.72
Russia 1.73
 Portugal 1.7
 Denmark 1.69
 Netherlands 1.65

Top 5 defensive teams who never won the world cup.
 Portugal 0.96
 Netherlands 1.02
Russia 1.19
 Poland 1.29
Serbia 1.37

Of the 27 teams who have scored 25 goals, the continental
representations are (ordered in terms of total points for wins and
draws):

Europe (19 nations) - Germany, Italy, England, Spain, France,
Netherlands, Sweden, Serbia, Russia, Poland, Hungary, Czech, Austria,
Portugal, Belgium, Switzerland, Romania, Denmark, Scotland.

South America (5 nations) - Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile,
Paraguay

North America (2 nations) - Mexico and USA

Asia (1 nation) - South Korea
From: JCQ on 17 Jul 2010 10:53
There are teams that don't get scored upon a lot because they have
superior attacking players that make the other team just want to
defend. Until they faced a good team Argentina did no give up many
goals. 2 in 4 matches. This does not mean their defense was good, only
that they played teams they could dominate. Brazil has also had a so
so defense most of the time (Not this year) but they have the ball for
most of the game so that defense is not tested unless they face a top
team which is not often in world cups. Italy in my opinion has had the
best defense and best defenders over the years but they play the game
differently than Argentina and Brazil who almost always push the
action.
From: TT on 17 Jul 2010 11:08
JCQ wrote:
> There are teams that don't get scored upon a lot because they have
> superior attacking players that make the other team just want to
> defend. Until they faced a good team Argentina did no give up many
> goals. 2 in 4 matches. This does not mean their defense was good, only
> that they played teams they could dominate. Brazil has also had a so
> so defense most of the time (Not this year) but they have the ball for
> most of the game so that defense is not tested unless they face a top
> team which is not often in world cups. Italy in my opinion has had the
> best defense and best defenders over the years but they play the game
> differently than Argentina and Brazil who almost always push the
> action.

This is tennis newsgroup, not some damn "soccer" list.

--
http://s4.postimage.org/DqPli-07bec5b30fb99d26898facc4e66e141e.jpg
From: Superdave on 17 Jul 2010 19:54
On Sat, 17 Jul 2010 18:08:43 +0300, TT <naw(a)email.org> wrote:

>JCQ wrote:
>> There are teams that don't get scored upon a lot because they have
>> superior attacking players that make the other team just want to
>> defend. Until they faced a good team Argentina did no give up many
>> goals. 2 in 4 matches. This does not mean their defense was good, only
>> that they played teams they could dominate. Brazil has also had a so
>> so defense most of the time (Not this year) but they have the ball for
>> most of the game so that defense is not tested unless they face a top
>> team which is not often in world cups. Italy in my opinion has had the
>> best defense and best defenders over the years but they play the game
>> differently than Argentina and Brazil who almost always push the
>> action.
>
>This is tennis newsgroup, not some damn "soccer" list.

wanna bet?
 |  Next  |  Last
Pages: 1 2
Prev: Proposal for a new World Cup format
Next: The top 10 popular team sports of all time