The key ingredient of football is the goal. Not just actual goals by themselves, but also play and tactics oriented towards goals, which create the game tension that make football such an attractive sport. Which is why the statistics detailed in the table below are a cause of concern.
The table shows average goals per game for all World Cup tournaments since 1966. The columns show goals for the overall tournament and the split of average goals per game for the first round and second round.
The average goals per game in each tournament have been calculated excluding the game with most goals in both the first and second round, in order to exclude somewhat the impact of outlier results.
The table shows that average goals decreased steadily up to the World Cup 1990, that marked the nadir in terms of goal effectiveness.
From the 1990 World Cup FIFA has modified rules in order to favour offensive play. In World Cup 1994 for the first time in group stages 3 points were awarded for the winning team (draw continued to be 1 point each team). This incentives teams to win rather than conform with a draw.
Another key change was prohibiting the goalkeeper picking up with his hand passes from his field players, which reduced timewasting and made defensive tactics less attractive.
An important change was a drive to punish violent play and to limit the ability of defenders to intimidate offensive players. Check our previous blog on the statistics of World Cup disciplinary actions.
It seemed that the rule changes reversed the downward trend in goal scoring. But in World Cups 2002 and 2006 the goal average is again drifting downward. And this is not caused by the first round games, where goal scoring has remained close to historical averages, but rather by the second round games which have seen a dearth of goal effectiveness.
What is the reason for this worrying trend? The 3 points up for grabs in the first round together with the pairings of strong teams with weaker teams could help explain why the first round maintains goal averages, but I have no neat explanation for the drought in second round games (where by the way the extra-times should lead to more goals, not less). Please let us know your thoughts.
I bet FIFA is watching this trend carefully and will implement necessary changes if confirmed. More goals mean more attractive football which eventually means more revenues for Football. A radical suggestion would be to expand moderately the size of the goal (goalkeepers will hate this).
But changes have to be thought our very carefully. I remember an experiment in a friendly match in Spain where the off-side rule was modified with no off-side penalised until deep into the opponent's half. The result was awful, a kind of Australian Rules Football, but repugnant to football fans.
Let us hope that this World Cup is productive in terms of goals, both quantity and quality.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment